Waiting For This Heart to Beat
by DCFanatic4life
Summary: You have to be with her, they said, you've only got so much time, they said...but Chris doesn't understand, doesn't know he's about to change his future...Chris/Steph...
1. Chapter 1

**Disclaimer: I do not own the characters or real people in this story. The characters belong to WWE and the real people belong to themselves. There could be swearing in the story, if that offends you, you might want to read something else, if it doesn't offend you, read on!

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**A/N: So I came up with this idea after talking to Jodi (Stephanie Irvine) and joking around about how alike we are. Anyways, at the behest of some people, I decided to jump right into a new story (I know, I know, I have no restraint). The concept is going to be slightly AU, you'll find out why. I kind of like this first chapter, but I'm not sure, so reviews would be very much appreciated. Let me know if you want this continued because well, it might be too weird or like, I don't know, bad, let me know, be brutal if you want. Hope you enjoy, emphasis on hope! :)

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It's often on the most ordinary of days that things take a turn for the weird.

Today was an ordinary day. Or as ordinary a day you can get when you're a professional wrestler. The normal of a professional wrestler is not the normal of the everyday man, the man who gets up, goes to work, comes home and lathers, rinses, and repeats. For a professional wrestler, the road and the air are just as much home as the bed you sleep in. But for today, Chris Irvine was at home, lounging in his favorite recliner and watching a classic hockey game with a beer in his hand.

Later, when things settle down, when he has time to think, maybe he'll blame the beers he has, but right now, they seem rather innocuous.

He likes the time he spends at home. It's like a vacation from work and he tries to spend those days with himself, where he doesn't have to be Chris Jericho all the time, but instead is just Chris, himself. He doesn't have to be "on" or interact with fans. He just sits and watches his game and he's content. When the game finishes and the last of his beers is empty, he has to find something to do and he isn't sure what he wants to do at the moment so he lies there and he closes his eyes and dozes for a bit, just a bit before waking up again. The sun is starting to go down over the horizon and he can see it out the back door out onto his patio.

On this day, the sunset is making the sky exceptionally bright. It's a strange mixture of colors too, not quite pink, but not quite purple. But everything is glowing. Everything is glowing and sparkling and there's a warm summer rain washing over the world just outside his window and it's the strangest thing he's ever seen. The sky has barely any clouds and yet it's raining, and not just a sprinkle here and there, but raining like the heavens are crying, weeping. It's a beautifully strange sight, but nothing he thinks out of the ordinary.

He watches until the rains stop, but the drops are still lingering on the grass like little diamonds, prickling against the waning sun. He gets up from his recliner and he stretches his arms over his head. What to do now? He's thinking to himself as he looks around his house, wondering what he can possibly do to pass the time. The great thing is that he doesn't have to do anything that he doesn't want to do. There are no matches he's forced to be in, no promos he's supposed to say, he could just stand there if he wanted to, but he doesn't want to.

He decides the computer is his best bet. Nothing a little surfing can't solve and if worse comes to worse, there's always porn. There are plenty of things to do on there though so he goes to his computer, sits himself down and turns on the computer, leaning backwards as it loads. He loves the quiet of his house. It's probably why he doesn't have a wife or kids, he just loves the quiet. It doesn't make him a loner, just someone who appreciates the merits of being alone and there's nothing wrong with that, nothing wrong with that at all.

He's only on for a few minutes before the screen pops up with a new IM. He wonders how that happened. He doesn't remember signing in, but when he checks, he had the Auto Sign-in clicked on and that explains that. The message is from someone he doesn't know and he's hesitant to click on it. How would someone get his screenname? Only the people he was closest to had it and they were few. Maybe one of his friends had given it out and he hoped it wasn't from some girl asking for a date or someone that his friends were trying to set him up with. The last thing he needed was some woman thrown at him.

FixtheBrkn: Is this Chris Irvine?

IAmIrvine: Who is this?

FixtheBrkn: I used to know you. I mean, I still know you, we just haven't talked in a while.

IAmIrvine: Can I get a name so I don't know this is some lame person who I really don't know.

FixtheBrkn: You probably won't remember me anyways, we were friends though.

IAmIrvine: But you can't tell me your name?"

FixtheBrkn: What's the point if you don't remember who I am?

IAmIrvine: So I don't think you're a crazy stalker?

He thinks that's pretty obvious. Anyone in the world can claim to know him and not really know him. He plods through this cautiously because he doesn't want to give out information that could be used against him. He tries to figure out who this could be, but there aren't enough clues yet to deduce who this could possibly be so he stops trying. He'll have to try and get more out of him.

FixtheBrkn: I'm not.

IAmIrvine: Yeah, like I can trust you.

FixtheBrkn: I swear, I know you.

IAmIrvine: Prove it.

FixtheBrkn: Your second match ever, you ripped your pants around the ankles and you were scared that they'd rip up the seam during your match so you stapled them together.

He didn't tell many people about that little detail except his friends or people he actually knew. He knew the story had never really made it to the general public because why should it? It was just a story that he occasionally told while shooting the breeze with some of the wrestlers. Maybe this was someone playing a prank on him. That's what it had to be, someone making an elaborate prank and he'd walk into work on Monday and he would see pictures of himself posted everywhere and it would be a good rib and people would laugh.

IAmIrvine: Okay, so you obviously know me. Who is this? Jay, is this you?

FixtheBrkn: I'm not Jay.

Chris was not to be deterred however. He was going to get to the bottom of this and find out who was messaging him so cryptically.

IAmIrvine: Is this some sort of plan? What the hell are the guys going to do to me on Monday? Just tell me now and everything can be avoided. I know you want to humiliate me in some way, but you're not going to get away with it.

FixtheBrkn: You need to be with Stephanie McMahon.

IAmIrvine: What?

This was confusing. Be with Stephanie McMahon? What? Was he going to go up to her and talk to her and then they were going to dump coleslaw on his head. He was not going to fall for this. He's smarter than this, he knows this and he won't fall for it. Talk to Stephanie, be with Stephanie? This was not going to happen. Besides, Stephanie was married. He couldn't be with Stephanie if she was already taken, not that he'd want to anyways.

FixtheBrkn: You have to be with her.

IAmIrvine: No.

IAmIrvine: I don't think so

FixtheBrkn: You have to. You've only got so much time to be with her and you need to, please.

IAmIrvine: Dude, what the hell is going on? Who is this, seriously? If you guys are trying to get me to like fake hit on Stephanie and then you're going to get Paul to come get me, that is not cool. There's ribbing and then there's sicc'ing that nose on me.

FixtheBrkn: You've got to be with her.

IAmIrvine: No, dude, I'm not falling for this.

FixtheBrkn: It's...it's important.

IAmIrvine: What, is she being abused?

FixtheBrkn: No...

IAmIrvine: Then sorry, no knights in shining armor here!

He's getting frustrated now. This is going beyond a joke into annoying territory. He doesn't even like to think about work when he's at home and now he has to look forward to Monday and a prankster on the loose. If they would just identify himself, he could avoid said persons, but when you don't know, how do you avoid someone? He's going to walk in on Monday and keep on the look-out for people trying to prank him and that's not how he likes to spend his time. He's an adult, not a child.

FixtheBrkn: You have to, please, you just have to...

IAmIrvine: I don't have to do anything.

FixtheBrkn: I know you don't have to do anything, that's not what this is about, it's not about you, it's about...it's about things and stuff being set in motion and...

IAmIrvine: Dude, just tell me what the hell you have planned for Monday so we can get this over with?

FixtheBrkn: There's nothing planned for Monday.

IAmIrvine: Yeah right.

FixtheBrkn: Chris, please, listen to me, look, you need to be with Stephanie McMahon, you just do. Everyone sees it, you just need to be with her.

IAmIrvine: Hey dumbass, she's married. Even if I wanted to be with her, I don't think it would be within the realms of the moral code, you know, cheating and all the stuff.

FixtheBrkn: Break them up.

IAmIrvine: Oh, so now you want me to break them up? Not only do you want me to _be_ with Stephanie McMahon, you want me to break up her _marriage_? Okay, so is this like someone who hates Paul and wants me to like make his life miserable, right? Well, I'm not going to partake in that. I don't even like Stephanie McMahon.

FixtheBrkn: You love her.

He starts to laugh, big, drawn out laughs. Him, love Stephanie McMahon? He likes her alright, she's cool, they've never had any problems. They've never been friends either so falling in love with her, _being_ in love with her, that thought has never crossed his mind. It'd be a mixed up relationship because she's just not his type. Not that she isn't beautiful or smart or anything, just...not someone he could picture himself with. That's why he laughs, that's why he's starting to think whomever is on the other end of this conversation is on drugs. He doesn't love Stephanie McMahon so being with Stephanie McMahon is out of the question.

IAmIrvine: I don't love her.

FixtheBrkn: You do, I know you do.

IAmIrvine: Oh, then tell me how you know?

FixtheBrkn: I just know.

IAmIrvine: Okay, liar, whoever this is, we're through here. You can just go on my block list, yup, that's right, blocking you now, see, you, bye...

FixtheBrkn: Chris, please, listen to me, you _have_ to be with Stephanie McMahon. You've only got so much time!

Chris was almost intrigued enough to find out what kind of time he was talking about. He was almost curious enough to keep talking to him, but his hand starts towards that block button anyways. He can't help it, it's gravitating towards it and he's going to click on it and that will be the end of it. Whoever this is can certainly choose some other poor schlep to play a part in his stupid plans. He can just go back to spending his home time relaxing. The porn is looking better and better at this point and maybe that'll help him relax.

But something in him stays and he won't regret it later, maybe he will, but he probably won't, he doesn't know yet because things have not happened yet and he cannot see the future, not yet anyways. But the future always reveals itself in some way. It prowls up on you, creeping silently and then pounces and you are suddenly in a situation you weren't prepared for and the future can be scary and it can be life-altering and his future was staring him right in the face.

IAmIrvine: How much time? What do you mean time?

FixtheBrkn: You only have so much time to be with her. You won't get a lot of time. You need to make this happen and make it happen fast.

IAmIrvine: She's MARRIED!

FixtheBrkn: You don't care about that, you _can't_ care about that.

IAmIrvine: Why should I listen to you?

FixtheBrkn: Because you have to...please...

Even from behind a computer screen he could feel the desperation in this person's voice. Maybe he was going at this from the wrong angle. Maybe it wasn't someone trying to rib him or prank him, maybe it was a woman who wanted Paul all to herself. What a sad, sad woman that would be, but who was he to dictate who fell in love with whom? Was he willing to play along with this woman's plan to gain a man? It seemed silly, to come at him this way and not tell him who she was...unless Paul was having an affair.

IAmIrvine: Are you having an affair with Paul? Is that why you want her out of the picture?

FixtheBrkn: If that helps, then sure, yes, that's it.

IAmIrvine: I don't really believe this is the right way to go about things.

FixtheBrkn: It's the ONLY way!

IAmIrvine: Okay, okay, lighten up, sweetheart. I don't really believe what you're saying, but if you meet me on Monday, we can talk...

FixtheBrkn: We can't.

IAmIrvine: Come on, you won't even tell me who this is, really?

FixtheBrkn: I can't.

IAmIrvine: I would be ashamed if I loved Paul too, but we can talk this out like adults, right.

FixtheBrkn: Just please, be with Stephanie McMahon. I have to go, but please, just be with her, you've only got a short time for this to happen, please, you've only got a short time.

IAmIrvine: Are you pregnant or something?

_FixtheBrken is offline (6:36:36 PM)_

From the other side of the screen sits another man. He runs his hands through his hair and then stares at his hands. He knew it would be difficult to convince Chris, the man is stubborn, so stubborn, but he'd at least plant the seeds. Even if he blocked him, he could get himself unblocked no problem. Maybe if Chris believes him, then things can change. He doesn't exactly know how this is going to work, how this _is_ working but he's been given a chance and he knows that he has to take advantage of this strange opportunity. He knows he can convince Chris Irvine to be with Stephanie McMahon...

Because he _is_ Chris Irvine, three years into the future...

And his past self has one year to rescue Stephanie McMahon before she dies.


	2. Chapter 2

A/N: Wow, thank you SO much to those who reviewed this story, I was really surprised it was received so well! I'm just kind of winging it with this one. I know where I want to go, but getting there, who knows. Big thanks to Jodi (StephanIrvine) for always helping me with my stories, she's the best and a freaking awesome writer to boot (if you haven't already, read Blind and The Loneliness is Better Near Now! Both are awesome!). But thank you again so much for the reviews, I'm really excited for this story and just hope I can do the concept justice. Please keep leaving reviews, they make my day, thank you, and hope you enjoy. :)

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Chris turns off his computer and then stares at the screen. He can't believe he just talked to himself, or at least who he believed to be himself, it sure sounded like himself, but can he really be sure if he doesn't see the person on the other side? He laughs to himself as he thinks about his past self being confused because he's confused and he believes this could all be a prank as well. It's been a while since he's used the IAmIrvine name. He'd left it behind a while ago, opting for a new one. The new one identified himself as well so he was hesitant to use it against his past self.

But was that really his past self? He felt like this could still be an elaborate joke on him. He didn't know how he was talking to his former self (if it was indeed his former self). The entire situation just raises red flags in his brain and he doesn't know what or who to believe at this current moment. Should he believe this mysterious occurrence or should he believe that it's an elaborate prank being played on him by the younger guys of the company. He's become sort of an icon to the younger guys.

Ever since Paul went off the deep end and decided that wrestling was all he'd be doing at the shows, Chris was the new figurehead in the locker room, the ultimate veteran and times had changed. Paul incited fear where Chris was welcoming. The two of them had really just gone in two different directions since Stephanie's death. But maybe they'd had to, maybe that was just how life was supposed to be for the both of them. Thinking about this brought back thoughts of Stephanie's death and even two years after the fact, he still hurts.

His mind plays on that day, that day two years ago, not quite two, he thinks to himself, not quite there yet, but it's just stalling the inevitable flashback to that day. It's strange, he thinks, how something like that changes your outlook, changes your life. He only wishes the changes it had brought him had come about sooner, maybe then he could've been there, could've saved her, could've gotten her away from the accident.

Could have saved her life.

His brain goes back there, almost unwittingly, but then, it usually goes back there when he has a moment to think. It's the quiet moments, the silent moments that are the most deadly. The memories, the thoughts, the feelings creep up into him and climb into his brain, clawing their way in when he resists and there they are and he's thinking them again, against his will because he doesn't want to think of Stephanie, when he thinks of Stephanie, he misses Stephanie.

"_Meeting in catering," Jay said as he passed by Chris. _

_Chris took off his headphones, "What'd you say, man?"_

"_Meeting in catering, some sort of big announcement or something," Jay said. "You better hurry before boss-man gets mad at you for being late."_

"_I'm coming, I'm coming," he said as he hopped out of his chair and next to his friend. "I wonder what it is this time."_

"_Who knows?" Jay said. "He's probably making some big changes to the storyline and has to inform us all again."_

"_Yeah," Chris said with a sigh. They arrived in catering and almost everyone was there. Chris managed to find a couple seats in the back and he and Jay took a seat. There were so many people coming inside that a lot of them had to stand. People were whispering and talking and wondering what was going on, but Chris was just focusing on the match he had later. He was going to need to talk to Edge about their match._

"_Hey, everyone," Shane said from the top of a chair. Everyone turned their attention to the front of the room where Shane was. He was wearing sunglasses, which Chris thought was odd. Not that he had never worn sunglasses inside, but Shane never had. "Um, I just…I just wanted to tell you that tonight's show is cancelled."_

"_Cancelled," everyone said, their voices rising up in confusion. _

"_What's going on, Shane?" Cena asked, speaking for everyone. _

"_The show tonight is actually, it's actually," Shane paused. His pause was far too long, far, far too long. Chris didn't know if anyone else was picking up on this, but he certainly was. There was a tremble to Shane's voice that Chris didn't like. It was obviously the voice of someone who wanted to break down and was trying very hard not to. "It's…it's going to be a tribute show."_

"_What?" Chris said out loud, louder than he'd intended. While everyone was looking around trying to find out who was missing, Chris asked the dreaded question, a question he wished he never had to ask to be followed by an answer he never wanted to hear. "Who died?"_

_Shane took a deep, hard breath, a breath meant to steady him, but one that took effort, like every breath was difficult for him, "It's for…it's for Stephanie."_

"_Stephanie McMahon?" Chris asked, in shock now as the whispers grew louder, more urgent. "Shane, what the hell is going on?"_

"_Earlier today, Stephanie and Paul were driving here…their car was struck…Paul's in the hospital, he should be okay, um, the car wasn't struck on his side. Stephanie…she…she didn't make it, my parents are there, um, but they asked if I could come let you know. The show is going to be for her so if you want to say something about her to the cameras, they're set up. Thanks for listening."_

_The room seemed frozen as nobody knew what to do next, what to say next. Chris just sat there, his eyebrows furrowing as he thought about Stephanie. They'd never been best friends, but they'd been good friends. They'd gone out to dinner, just them, a few times, not a regular occurrence, but he liked her, he certainly liked her. He'd have to say something to the cameras, there was just no way he couldn't. They'd worked together so many times, he'd have to say something._

_The walk there seemed like a trek, every step closer seemed to take more breath, like he was climbing Everest, but this summit wouldn't bring joy, only defeat. There were a couple people there. He wondered if they'd make it on the air, he wondered if he would make it on the air. They'd been told, after Shane left, that anyone who wanted to could leave. He didn't want to leave just yet, but maybe after, maybe after this he could leave._

_When he sat down, he expected a rush of memories, he thought their storylines would pop into his head, everything all once, like a torrent of water, rushing down to capsize him, but there was nothing except her. His head formed a clear vision of her, like she was standing right in front of him. Had she been here, she'd be leaning back against that wall, listening, rolling her eyes when someone screwed up, wanting to jump in and correct them. He could almost see her, this beautiful apparition, brushing hair out of her face, calling the shots, just being Stephanie._

_It was then he began to speak, "Stephanie McMahon, though we seemed to have many differences, was actually one of the sweetest people you could meet and coming from me of all people, you know it must be true. She was an amazing person and she was always in charge. We were actually really good friends. We'd go out to dinners and just laugh and she had a great laugh. She made working with her fun. I never stopped smiling when I was with her. She was…she was just amazing…"_

_He didn't know he was going to cry, but when the tears pushed past his best defense, he didn't stop them. He didn't mean to cry, but the more he spoke, the stranger he felt. He was feeling like he was missing something, like something had been taken away from him. He knew it was Stephanie, but wouldn't admit that, not yet....not just yet…_

It took him a few days after the funeral to realize what that strange feeling was. He'd loved Stephanie without even knowing it. It was like, just having her near him kept those thoughts at bay, but the moment she was gone, they came rushing to the surface to mock him. Tell him that he'd been an idiot all this time. He could've had her (no he couldn't, he'd tell himself a moment later), but he'd been too slow and now she was gone.

Except yesterday he had received something rather peculiar in the mail. It had been an envelope, addressed to him, the name and addressed typed, with no return address and no stamp. Someone must have dropped it off into his mailbox personally. He hadn't been at home so he didn't know who had left it. He'd opened it tentatively, wondering what could possibly be inside. The only thing had been a slip of paper, on which had been typed, "What is the one thing you would love to go back and change?"

It'd taken him mere moments to mumble to himself that he would love to see Stephanie alive again. If he had another chance, he would tell her how he felt about her, how stupid he was for only realizing it after she died. Actually, scratch that, if he had another chance, he'd just like to see her. He could live with seeing her, not the apparitions she would show herself as. Sometimes he thought he saw her, but they always ended up just being people who looked like her and he ended up feeling stupid for even thinking she could be alive.

He wasn't as bad as Paul though. Though he was not at fault for the accident, he blamed himself. He used to say, before he practically went mute, that he should've waited 5 minutes, that he could have, that she'd been thirsty and they could have stopped at a drive-thru for something to drink. He blamed himself, that he wasn't the one in that seat, that he wasn't the one to take the blow. He still blamed himself, but he wouldn't say it to anyone because he didn't talk to anyone. Maybe he did in his personal life, but wrestling now, it was just a job, not something he truly loved.

Chris felt sorry for Paul, but jealous as well. The man had Stephanie for a while, Chris hadn't, but the bigger part of him felt sorry for what the man had been through and what he was still going through. He would come to shows, do his job, and then go home. There was no personality to him any longer, not that the one he'd had had been the best, but he'd been there. Sure, he'd go out there and he'd play his part, but that was the extent of it. The same routine. Other people had tried to get him back to his old self, Shawn most noticeably, but nothing worked.

This morning, another letter had come to Chris in his mailbox. He'd opened it again, wondering who was trying to pull a fast one over him. "You can change it."

He didn't believe it until he was online this evening and saw himself or whoever it was. He didn't even remember putting his name on his buddy list. He'd had no reason to. Only a few people knew that name, he didn't use it anymore and it would take quite a bit of hacking to get into it because he didn't make his passwords easy. But how was it possible. How could he have such a link back in time? He'd had to try when he saw that name sitting there. He'd had to ask and it appeared to be him. That was the scary part, it appeared to be him talking to himself.

He didn't understand how it worked, not at all. There weren't supposed to be time machines and you weren't supposed to be able to change the past. There should just be one timeline, so why was his timeline changing, why did he get this chance? Was this even a chance? If it worked, what then? What next? Would he have Stephanie? The only thing he could think to say to himself back then was to be with Stephanie. He'd often believed that if they'd been together, none of this would have happened.

Okay, it was a little selfish of him. He knew he could change the past by making Paul leave a little later or not leave at all or leave earlier. There were a number of ways, but he couldn't help it, the one way that stuck in his brain, the one way that had _been_ stuck in his brain for these almost two years was the thought of how he could've saved Stephanie by being the one she was with. He wanted her with him, it was that simple. He wanted her with him.

And yes, sometimes, though he really didn't want it to, the thoughts of, "Hunter let this happen," popped into his head, but he backed those away. Now he had a second chance, maybe, but he'd have to convince his former self that he was indeed in love with Stephanie. He had no doubt (being himself) that he was in love with Stephanie then. After she'd died, he had reevaluated his life and gone back, so far back and every time he thought of her, he'd loved her, in his own way, but he'd loved her. So if there was a chance, any chance that he could have her, he had to try, he had to take that chance.

He had to change the past.


	3. Chapter 3

A/N: Thanks again for the reviews, I love them all and I'm glad this story isn't like Dullsvile. Anyways, I kind of forgot about this story a little while, but I'm back with more so if you want to, leave a review, brutality welcomed. Enjoy. :)

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Ridiculous.

That's what that person had been, ridiculous. If someone was really having an affair with Paul (and he can't figure out why someone would do something so stupid, the man is _married_ to the boss) then why involve him. He ponders this as he drives to the next show. He half expects there to be some elaborate prank set up for him, maybe a banner that says, "Got ya, Chris!" on it for all to see. Why would someone come to him to help break up Stephanie and Paul? He's pretty sure they fight a lot anyways so maybe mystery person should just wait that relationship out.

Unless that last question he asked was true and somewhere in the company is a woman pregnant with Paul's child. Now wouldn't that be the kicker? If someone was pregnant with Paul's child, the news would get out eventually and the fallout would be epic. He wouldn't mind seeing Paul get some of the comeuppance he'd deserved for so many years. So what, Chris didn't have much love lost for Paul. It wasn't like Paul was one of his best friends or ever had been. Paul was one of those guys that protected his spot like it was his own baby. Now Chris was back to the baby idea.

He tries to parse it out in his head who might be the person who messaged him last night. One of the divas maybe? But if it were one of them, it'd have to be one of the non-wrestling ones because if they were pregnant, he doesn't think they would be wrestling. Maybe Lillian? She doesn't wrestle, but he can't see Lillian as the type of person to have an affair. Maybe one of the production people. They would be discreet enough that they wouldn't say anything, but they'd be there every week and they'd be possibly desperate to get Paul away from Stephanie.

Now he's looking at every woman suspiciously, thinking that each one had something to hide. He finds himself looking at their stomachs too, just to see, just to see if one of them is possibly pregnant. The messages he'd received from the mystery person had stuck with him. It's just so strange that the person seemed to know intimate details about him, but wouldn't reveal their identity. What did they have to hide besides their obvious confusion over his feelings for Stephanie? He has no feelings, at least romantic ones, for Stephanie McMahon. He's never going to either because she's not his type anyways.

There's the woman in question and as if to defy the fates or whoever is stalking him, he walks over to her and smiles. She looks at him suspiciously, but when she sees no apparent sucking up or weirdness behind the smile, she eases into one herself. "Hey, Chris."

He's hoping that whoever decided that he and Stephanie should be soulmates is watching right now, just to see the lack of any real chemistry between them. It's easy to act like they hate each other or secretly lust after each other in front of the cameras. He gets into his role as Chris Jericho and as Chris Jericho, he was set out at a task of loathing (but sometimes liking and maybe even lusting) Stephanie McMahon and that's what he did. This did not mean he was pining for her. He never pined.

"Hey, Stephanie," he says cordially, but with a hint of "this is my superior so I'm just showing her respect." He doesn't want his stalker to get the wrong idea. The point of this is to prove to whomever was begging him to be with Stephanie that they were wrong and should bark up another tree.

"How are you?"

And while he was at it, he's going to prove that Stephanie and Paul are quite content in their married lives. "I am doing great, how are you doing?" he says and maybe he's a little bit too boisterous with his greeting. Better tone it down before he scares her or something.

She's already tilting her head a little. "I'm not complaining," she says with a giggle that is slightly tinged with nervousness.

"That's good, that's good," he tells her, noting the awkwardness between them. See, he tells the fates, this is why he isn't with Stephanie. Their relationship doesn't extend past this building. "So yeah…"

"Yeah," she says, echoing his sentiments as they both look around. In love? Dating? Together forever? Yeah right! This conversation is going nowhere and if it's going nowhere, they will go nowhere, simple as that.

"So how's the marriage going?" he asks and he's not entirely _sure_ why he asks, but he guesses that it's because he still has that mystery woman on the brain and wondering if maybe there's dissension there. That's the only way he can explain that crazy question away. Way to be way too personal with her, Chris.

"What?" she asks and her confusion is his savior.

"I was just joking," he tells her, trying to act like he was joking, putting on a smile, shrugging his shoulders coyly. "Just you know, shooting the breeze with you and well, you're married, I'm not married, never really have been, but you know, heard it's a great institution and all that."

He's rambling now and that's odd because he doesn't usually ramble like this, but he attributes it to the stupid question he asked; a question that came from a stupid conversation with a mystery person who no doubt just wants to get him in trouble. Maybe it was Paul himself messaging him, telling him to try and be with Stephanie so that he can get beat up later for "daring to put his dirty hands on Paul's wife." He would not put that past Paul at this point.

"Paul and I are fine," she answers tentatively, like she wants to know why he asked and he would like to know the same thing. Why _did_ he ask that? It was like his brain wasn't even his own for a moment, like it was somewhere far off and that the words just came out of his mouth.

"Good, glad to hear that," he says and this conversation could not get any worse if he tried. "You guys spend a lot of time together?"

Now where did _that_ come from? He's not even sure, but there was that feeling again, like his mouth has a mind of its own, just asking questions like they're nothing when they obviously have serious implications. Maybe she thinks he's propositioning her and that would be very bad. Then she'd really get Paul and he'd _definitely _beat him up. Why can't he just keep his mouth shut and walk away?

"We're married, so yeah, I'd say we spend a fair amount of time together," Stephanie tells him, licking her lips a little. "Why are you asking me so many questions? You're acting very strange."

"I'm just trying to talk to you."

"We never talk," she says and it's pretty true. Sure, they'll talk every once in a while, or nod hello at each other when they're both walking down the hallway, but they've never sat down an had a heart-to-heart or anything. He has people he can talk to and he figures the same of Stephanie.

"I know, but we do work together so I figured we should be nice to each other."

"I wasn't aware we were being _mean_ to each other," she says. "What is this really about? Are you unhappy with your storylines? Do you want more time on the shows because I've got to say, Chris, you get a lot of time as it is."

While that is true, it's not what this is about, "No, it's none of those things, I just want to talk to you to talk to you. I mean, how long have I been working here?"

Where are these words coming from! Now he's just making a fool out of himself and he's digging the hole deeper because he doesn't know how to get out of this situation. "Well, you've been here for about 10 years, well, I guess that should be more like 8 since you decided to take that ridiculous break."

"It wasn't ridiculous," he scoffs, "I was burnt out."

"Is that the word for it?" she wonders, smirking at him and that smirk has probably gotten a lot of men into trouble, but it's not going to get him in trouble, nope, no siree, not at all, no trouble here, keep moving along.

"Yes, it is the word for it," he laughs and it comes naturally to him. "But seriously, we've been working together all this time and I've kissed you twice and we know nothing about each other, well, I know some stuff, do you know some stuff about me?"

"I know enough about you," she answers. "I think I've gotten the memo on Chris Irvine."

"Good, but that's probably all work related stuff, stuff that everyone would know."

"So you're saying you want to be my friend?" she asks him point blank. Well, he can add blunt to the list of things he now knows about her. He knew she was blunt before, but she's very blunt. He thinks he likes that about her, but that's just like, nothing to love here yet, he's not loving her or madly in love with her at the moment.

"I guess that is what I'm saying," he responds and he isn't sure how the conversation went down this path, but he was here now and so instead of side-stepping and going off into the weeds, he thinks he'll continue down this path to see where it leads.

"Well then, friend," she jokes, "how does one go about being your friend?"

"Well, in the case of hot women, they sleep with me," he jokes, at least he thinks he's joking. That is something he would say, but after all those questions he just asked, this is probably not the answer she wanted to here. She must think he's trying to put the moves on her and that's not the case because he's not in love with her or anything. He's not even too far into like with her.

"So your hotel room or mine?" she asks, joking, of course she's joking and he's thankful that she saw that as a joke and not being him serious. Not that he would turn down Stephanie if the circumstances ever led them to bed each other. He probably wouldn't because despite not being in love with her, she is a beautiful woman and Chris wouldn't turn down such a beautiful woman.

"Considering you have a husband, probably mine."

"Good idea," she laughs and Chris is glad she laughs because it eases the tension he's feeling. "We'll meet up after the show."

For a moment, he's not sure if she's not serious, but when she winks, he knows she's just joking and good, he's glad, he thinks, that she's joking about it. "So where is your husband? So I know where he is so I don't get in trouble for taking you to bed tonight."

"Oh, he's around," Stephanie says, twirling her finger as if to say he's in the general area. "Not really sure, when we're at the shows it's kind of every man for himself and so he goes his way, I go mine and never the two shall meet."

"So you don't hang out with him at all during shows?" Interesting development. If his mystery person is with Paul, they have plenty of opportunities to be together if Stephanie is never around. This theory is starting to hold more and more weight.

"No, I have no reason to unless he's got something to do," Stephanie explains. "Otherwise, I let him focus on what he does and I focus on what I do."

"Good plan," Chris says, leaning against the wall now that their conversation is really hunkering down. "I guess if I were your husband--"

"Now you're making yourself my husband, awfully presumptuous of you," she raises an eyebrow at him. "You must think you're _amazing_ in bed if one night and I'm going to decide I need to marry you."

"While I am amazing in bed, that's not what I meant, I just meant that if I were your husband, hypothetically speaking, I'd probably want to hang around you."

"Because Paul and I _really_ want to spend 24 hours a day together. I think married people need time apart."

And maybe Paul was spending _too_ much time apart. "I don't know, you've always seemed pretty cool and easy to get along with."

"You've never lived with me," Stephanie tells him, smirking again and yes, he definitely thinks that smirk has been the downfall of many, _many_ men. No wonder she was the head of creative, she could probably smirk at a guy and they'd do her bidding. "Anyways, it's been good talking to you, new friend, but I've got work to do and so do you."

"Okay," he says, okay that this conversation is over because there's the promise of more in the future.

"I'll meet you in your hotel room," she laughs, winking at him again before walking away.

He laughs a little as well and watches her walking away and he's almost fairly sure she's swinging her hips for him, but that may be just the way she walks, he's never observed her walking before. He looks down and shakes his head, wondering how Paul could possibly cheat on someone like her. She seemed cool enough as it was. He feels a vibrating in his pocket and pulls out his phone to check for text messages. He has one and he pulls it up.

Thanks for meeting with her

He looks around quickly, wondering who the hell is spying on him. He looks at the message again and the date is strange, _August 25, 2012 4:35 pm_? His phone must be busted because it's only 2009. Damn it, did the date change itself? He's angry because his phone sometimes acts unusually and this time is no exception. Though he does laugh a little, thinking that this message is from the future. It's still strange though and he continues to look around seeing if the person is watching him. They must have seen them talking and assumed. So he decides to send a message back.

Sorry, fool, no love between us, she's cool, but we're not destined to be, sorry to burst your bubble, you'll just have to continue being Paul's whore.

There, sent. A moment later, another buzz and he groans and opens it.

_You will_.


	4. Chapter 4

A/N: Thanks so much for the reviews, they're all so great and I'm glad you're liking the story. Here's the next chapter, hope you enjoy and leave a review if you want. I really encourage it and if anyone wants to suggest anything for this one, please do as I have no idea where I'm really going with it! :)

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He doesn't want to think about those messages because they will just hurt his brain. He deletes them as soon as he reads them and then forgets about them. Well, he forgets about them as well as he can, considering that he just read them and they're bound to be in his head. He looks around, wondering if there is someone spying on him. Maybe it's actually Shane McMahon, this weird observer person and he just doesn't like Hunter and so he's trying to set up Chris with his sister. Shane would have access to everything around here and maybe he was checking security cameras.

Great, when had he become some weird conspiracy theorist? Next thing he knew, he was going to be reading tons of books on the Kennedy assassination and talking about grassy knolls. Would Shane actually do something like that? In the McMahon family, he probably wouldn't put anything past anyone. Still, if Shane was watching him, or if some other weirdo, or some adulterous chick, he didn't care. He'd deleted the messages and now they were out of his hair.

He went about his normal business that evening, forgetting about the strange messages. He had other things to worry about. When he finally arrived back at his hotel room, it was a welcome distraction from his work. He likes to just sit around and watch television for a while. Sometimes he'll go out and party, when the mood strikes him, but most nights, he likes to unwind and be by himself. Wrestling is such an open business that he never feels like he has any time to himself.

When there's a knock at the door, he wonders who it can be and almost doesn't open it. But then he stands up and trudges his way to the door. Maybe it's his crazy stalker finally revealing himself or herself and he can chew them out for trying to use him as a pawn in some scheme to get Paul all to themselves or whatever reason the crazy stalker person had for being a crazy stalker person. By the time he reaches the door, he's kind of pissed off about the entire thing. He's not someone's plaything to be used at will, he's a human being and he's not going to be toyed with and it's with a certain gusto that he opens the door.

It's Stephanie though and he's surprised.

"You look surprised," she says, "I thought you would be expecting me."

He didn't actually expect her to be here and so he's a little confused. Does she really want to sleep with him? He won't turn her down if she does because even though she's married and he knows it, he kind of likes the thought of messing with Paul's head and knowing that in the end, he would have the upper-hand. On the other hand, he'd never been an aid to someone's cheating so he's unsure of what he would actually do if that situation came up.

"I didn't," he says, that's all he can say. He can let her fill in the rest.

"Chris," she laughs and he gives a nervous one back at her. He wasn't even aware that he _had_ a nervous laugh, but there it was. "Do you actually think I'm here soliciting you for sex?"

He doesn't know how to answer that. If he says yes, she could be offended because hey, he thought she wanted to have sex with him and cheat on her husband and possibly break up her marriage. On the other hand, if he says no, then she'll think she's not desirable and she's a very desirable woman. He's met many fans who have asked about her, many male fans who have asked if she's as hot up close as she is from afar. He usually laughs those off and says that she's definitely better up close and it's not a lie, she is great up close so he doesn't want her to think she's undesirable.

"I don't…I didn't expect you," he just says, trying to weasel his way out of the question.

"I'm not here because I want to sleep with you, I thought that from talking earlier you might actually want to hang out," she tells him and that makes so much more sense than his thoughts about her wanting to sleep with him. "I don't know, just the vibe I got, plus Paul went out with Shawn tonight and I thought I'd see if you were up to anything."

"We've never hung out," he feels the need to point out because it's the truth. Though he and Stephanie have worked together extensively and he _would_ call them friends, though a very loose kind of friend, they were not the type of friends that hung out.

"I know, but there's a first for everything and I'm so sick and tired of trying to fit in with some of the divas," Stephanie sighs. "I mean, they're nice and all and I like most of them for the most part, but I'm not in my early twenties and I'm not _out there_, you know, like, dating or scoping out guys."

"You're happy with Paul." He says it as a statement, but it can certainly be taken as a question.

"Yeah," she tells him, but somehow, he perceived a seed of doubt in her voice. But then he chalks that up to the weird messages that tell him he _needs_ to be with Stephanie. If there is someone that Paul is cheating with, then maybe Stephanie suspects something and she's really thinking that he's off with some whore right now and so she'll just come to him and hang out and then put the moves on him and…damn that person, planting these silly ideas in his head.

"Come on inside," he say, moving out of the way. He's allowed to enjoy her company and he will, if only for the evening. She smiles at him and he closes the door behind her, only now noticing that she has a plastic bag in her hand. "What do you have there?"

"Well, considering this is a swanky hotel and they give you DVD players, I went and bought a movie and some snacks. Do you like action films?" she asks him and he has to wonder how much thought went into this night.

"I do like them."

"How about horror films?" she asks and he nods again. "Well, then do you like Evil Dead?"

She must be reading his mind or something because that's absolutely one of his favorite movies and he tells her so, "I love that movie, it's definitely one of my favorites. What made you choose that out of all the movies in the world?"

"I was in the mood for a little cult classic camp," she answers. "But knowing that it's one of your favorites makes me just the genius of the world."

He laughs and grabs it from her. "What kind of snacks did you bring?"

"Candy mostly, but I thought we could order up some room service, I know for a fact they have nachos on the menu and nachos are great when you're watching a movie, don't you think?"

"I love nachos," he says and it's crazy how he's known this woman for so long and still doesn't know the simplest things about her. If she pulls out Kit-Kat bars, he's done for, just absolutely done for and maybe whoever is sending him messages used this to choose him to be the one to take Stephanie away from Paul.

"Do you like Kit-Kats?" she wonders, pulling them out of the bag. "I bought a bunch, I've never met a person who didn't like them and if you are that person then I think I made a mistake coming tonight."

"I love them," he says with a slight laugh, unbelieving that she could be so…almost perfect for him. He doesn't use that word in his mind though because that is a dangerous word, but he's starting to think that this friendship thing with Stephanie could be good because maybe she's really the female version of him or something.

They get settled and pop the movie into the player. There is a safe distance between them, a friend difference and neither one is uncomfortable. He glances over at her every once in a while, just to look at her as the colors from the television play across her face. She is very pretty, he isn't denying that at all. She's gorgeous really, maybe even more than gorgeous. He shouldn't be thinking these things, he knows this, but he doesn't try to stop them. What good would stopping them do? He's not planning on jumping her right here on the couch. He's just watching a move with her.

"You want some?" He turns to her and she's holding half of a Kit-Kat, having broken off the other two and taking a big bite out of it. He can see some of the chocolate pasting itself to her teeth and while he should find this disgusting, it makes her more human. Before, she always seemed a little untouchable.

"Thanks," he says, taking it from her and eating it in approximately two bites. She looks amazed and then laughs as she turns back to the television and it's a strange feeling that comes over him.

Sometimes, you can feel a feeling coming over you, like a warm blanket on a stormy night when that safe feeling overtakes you and you feel like nothing can touch you. He feels it creeping over him, slowly and methodically, making sure it hits every crevice, every iota of his being. He's starting to feel an attraction to her. A genuine attraction, not an admiration, not a camaraderie, but an attraction. He does not plan to seek action to fulfill this attraction, it's enough to know that it's there.

He's not in love with her, he's just attracted to the person he sees in front of him. "God, I love this movie."

"You're crazy," he says as there's a knock at the door and he goes to answer it and get their nachos and buffalo wings, Stephanie had had a craving for them as well. The guy puts the tray on the table and Chris tips him before he grabs the tray and puts it on the couch between them. Stephanie immediately grabs a chip and eats it like she's not eaten in a week. "God, eat much?"

"What's that supposed to mean?" She looks at him and she has one eyebrow raised almost daring her to say something about her eating habits. But Chris is never one to back down from such an incriminating eyebrow.

"It means you're attacking that food like you're a lion and that's your antelope," he jokes. She rolls her eyes and grabs a buffalo wing, tearing the meat off like she _is_ that lion. He admires her for that and still becomes more attracted to her. "You're nothing like I thought you were."

"Wait until you see me in bed," she winks at him, a callback to what he thought earlier except now, if she's offering, he will _definitely_ take her up on that offer. Definitely.

Somewhere, at some other time, Chris is jolted awake and he stares at the ceiling. He blinks, thinking back to the dream or what he thinks is a dream. It certainly didn't feel like a dream. In his mind, he pictures it clearly. He's sitting with Stephanie on a couch and watching movies and laughing with her, sharing candy and food and she stays there until four in the morning when Paul calls her and asks her where she is. He's not mad, Stephanie's tone wasn't angry, just explanatory, saying she had been watching movies, but Chris, this Chris, this Chris who deals with loving a dead woman every day of his life, recalls that feeling of attraction as if it's just there, like it's just always been there. He realizes a moment later what this feeling must be, what this picture, this dream, he thought, must really be.

A memory.


	5. Chapter 5

A/N: Thank you so much for the reviews for this one. I'm really glad you're liking it even if I have no idea where it's going. This fulfills a request for someone (and I will get to those others, I promise), but I hope that you all enjoy the chapter. I actually really liked writing it so I hope you enjoy reading it and reviews are love so if you want, leave one. :)

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He smiles when he remembers the memory, this new little package inside his brain. It has to be a memory, it just has to be and if there's one new one in there, then that must mean that his former self, the person he used to be is listening to him or at least not ignoring him. It's a relief to think that he's changing the past. He knows it's crazy, knows this shouldn't even be happening and yet it is. It _is_ happening. Maybe the Chris he used to be can help her, can save her. He hopes he can. She's still dead here, he knows because he's standing in front of her grave right now and it's still there.

Yes, he was hoping it wouldn't be. He was hoping he'd show up and it would suddenly be gone and replaced with some unknown face, but it's not. She's still there, lying below his feet, probably still as beautiful as the day they put her in there, far away from his reach. He hates knowing that she's down there. She's too far down, too far away from her. He curses himself for not protecting her, but he's trying to change it now. He's trying to change it all.

"I don't know what's going on really, Steph," he says to her or rather, to the headstone with her name etched onto it. _Stephanie McMahon-Levesque_. He doesn't wish that it was _McMahon-Irvine_ or just _Irvine _written there for the world to see, instead he wishes there were no name, no ground separating him from her. He wishes she were standing in front of him, speaking to him, letting him tell her that he loves her, that he'd loved her for so long and was just too stupid to realize it.

"I just know that I get a second chance at something and you're what I want the second chance at. That's silly, right? I mean, we were never even really together, you were married and I think you were happy," he says, rubbing the back of his neck. Cemeteries make him uncomfortable. There's such a sense of finality here. Like this is the absolute end of the road. It's even worse when he sees other people. So many times, he'll be here and look off and there's another family or another person and they're both sharing something profound and yet detached.

"I hope you were happy at least, but I don't know, I guess I just want a second chance. I know that you're probably thinking that I should just get over it and there must be someone out there who I could fall in love with and I'm sure there is. I'm not stupid enough to think that you are _it_, _the_ only one that could ever make me happy. I just…I guess I think that of everyone, you'd make me the _happiest_. I'm not even sure if this whole thing is real."

It feels silly now, saying it out loud. Someone had just come to him and told him he could change something, one thing, and now he's talking with his past self, telling him to save Stephanie? It sounds crazy. Maybe he _is_ crazy. Maybe it's some elaborate prank by someone to make him think he could have Stephanie, but it just doesn't make sense. He has been talking to someone who was so like himself that it just _has_ to be himself. Plus that memory, that memory is new. It has to be a memory, it's too real to be anything else.

"I had a memory about us, it was something I know we'd never done before. I know it was a memory. I wonder if you were here right now if you would remember it too. Maybe you would. Maybe you could share it with me."

He sits now, in front of that headstone. In a way, it feels like he's closer to her, like he's just next to her. There's a slight breeze that blows through his short hair. He looks around, takes in the green land surrounding him, the trees where the wind that just swept over him now sweeps over their branches, like hair to those trees. He looks back at her headstone and reaches forward to run his hand over it.

"I guess one day I'm hoping that I'll show up here and you won't be here. I know I didn't say a lot of things to you while you were alive," he sighs, cursing himself again for his past mistakes. "I know I've told you all these things here and I guess I'm a coward for waiting, but Steph, if you do come back, if you come back, I'm going to tell it all to your face, I promise you that, I will tell you everything."

He closes his eyes before any tears could escape.

Chris opens his eyes and stretches. Last night had been fun with Stephanie. He wasn't expecting to have so much fun, but he was finding the more he hung out with her, the more he liked her. It has become kind of a tradition with them, having a movie night. Paul goes out a lot with Shawn, to blow off steam, Stephanie says. Chris has heard rumors about what they do to blow off steam, usually including something with other women, but he believes them to just be jealous rumors. People are jealous of Paul because he has Stephanie. Chris knows this because he is one of the jealous ones.

The more time he spends with her, the more he likes her and the more he finds himself attracted to her. They have so much in common and they have so much fun together that it's hard not to find her attractive. They're friends now though, he can say that. It's nice to have someone like her to hang out with. He likes hanging out with his guy friends, don't get him wrong, but sometimes there has to be something more to life than just going out and drinking _again_ or finding yourself in a strip club _again_. It's refreshing to stay in sometimes and just pig out and watch movies.

His phone rings and he grasps for it blindly from its place on the nightstand behind him. He finally grasps it and he checks it. He smiles, involuntarily, when he sees that it's Stephanie's number. He presses the button and brings it up to his ear. "Hey Steph, what's up?"

"Hey, you," she says brightly and he never figured her for a morning person. She's actually more of an all day person. She's just so happy at all times and he thinks that quality is near the top of the qualities that he likes about her. "Are you awake?"

"Well, considering you're talking to me, I'm going to say that I think I am."

"Did I wake you up?" she asks.

"No, not really, I had just woken up."

"Oh good, I might have felt bad if I'd woken you up," she laughs.

"Might have?"

"Well, not too much, maybe just a little bit," she tells him.

"So to what do I owe the pleasure so early in the morning?" he wonders. Not that he actually minds that she's calling. She could call him in the middle of the night and he'll welcome her voice interrupting his dreams. Still though, he understands that she's married and he would never try anything on her. He's not that kind of man and he never will be.

"I want to take you out for the day. We _always_ go to your room and hang out and I think I'm eating you out of house and home," she laughs and he doesn't say anything because, well, it's true. The girl can eat and still manage to look pretty amazing. "So to return the favor, today, _I _am taking _you_ out for a day of touristy fun."

"I've been to San Francisco more times than I can count, Steph."

"Yes, but you've never been around the city with _me_. I think that'll be a whole new experience for you," she says coyly. "So come on, Irvine? You in?"

"Damn straight I am, give me twenty and we'll go out, okay?"

"You've got twenty minutes, I'm counting down starting…now," she tells him and then she's hung up and he stays there for a moment, just letting himself wake up a little bit more and contemplate what a day out with Stephanie would be like. She's fun, but they've only ever hung out in his hotel room. He also wonders if it's going to be just them or if Paul is going to tag along, maybe he should have invited some diva to hang out with them in that case. He doesn't want to feel like the third wheel with Stephanie and Paul. He thinks about calling her back to ask, but then just decides that if it is the three of them, he'll still have fun.

He showers and dresses and is checking himself out in the mirror when she knocks on the door. He's just been checking his hair. When he used to wear it long, it was so easy to style. He'd take a shower, pull it into a ponytail and just be done with it. Now he had to carry gel and spike it up and make sure it didn't look bad and it was so much work that sometimes he regrets cutting it at all. Then again, he doesn't want to be that old guy with the long, white ponytail, obviously trying to capture some semblance of their rebellious youth.

When he answers the door, it's just her and he's more relieved than even he will allow himself to believe. She's smiling at him and he barely has time to grab his wallet before she's pulling him out the door and whisking him through the city. She decides (without telling him first) that their first stop must be Alcatraz. He comments that he hasn't eaten breakfast and she promises they will grab something on the way and she makes their cab driver stop at a Peet's Coffee to grab a little something. The coffee warms him up, but not as much as Stephanie's presence does and then he rolls his eyes at his own silliness. He doesn't think in love poems like some people do. He thinks in reality.

They're cruising through the prison when she slips her arm through his. They've got headphones on, listening to the guided tour that takes them through all the important stops in this dank, old place. It's not particularly exciting, interesting, maybe, but there's really nothing to do except hear about the prisoners' day and the infamous escape that still remains a mystery to this day. He could probably recite more if he remembered more, but he doesn't much think of anything once her arm is through his and they're walking. It's not a date and their just friends and she just wants to make sure she doesn't lose him.

When they're done with the tour, they start walking back to the ferry that took them to this island and she leans her chin against his shoulder as they walk, letting him guide her as her feet keeping moving where her eyes can't see. "You know those rumors about Paul?"

"What are you talking about?" he asks and her voice surprises him. They were walking quietly most of the way and her question surprises him even more. What rumors? _Those_ rumors?

"You know, the rumors about him sleeping with other women," she says, her voice calm and even. There's no hint of jealousy or anger. He glances at her and she's still as composed as ever, there may even be a hint of a smile there.

"Oh…those," he says, like it had just slipped his mind. "What about them?"

"I was just thinking about them," she tells him and he wonders where she's going with this. "He doesn't, just so you know. I mean, I guess he _could_, but I know him."

"Why were you thinking about them?" he asks. It's not a great thing that she's thinking about her husband while she's out with him. Wait, why wouldn't it? No, it's not a bad thing, she must think about her husband a lot, they _are_ married.

"Just because I'm sure rumors will start circulating soon enough about the two of us," she explains with a chuckle. "I mean, they're bound to, right? We hang out together when Paul isn't around, we go out on day trips, people are going to start thinking we're sleeping together. It's actually really funny when you think about it."

"Yeah, I guess it is," he says, then he does think about it and laugh. "God, wrestlers with their gossiping."

"I know, it can be a bit excessive, but when you spend so much time with the same people, I guess there's really nothing else to talk about. I just…Paul wouldn't do that to me, he's a good guy, despite all the outward hate that I know he generates, he has been a good guy and he is a good man. You want to know the real reason that he hangs out with Shawn a lot?"

"Because they're friends?" he says glibly.

"No, because Paul and I, I don't know, we don't really have much in common beyond the wrestling, you know," she shrugs pulling her chin away from him. "It's not that I don't love him, I do. It's just, when we strip wrestling from our relationship, there's really nothing there. Paul is a very serious man. You never hear much about him because wrestling _is_ him. I love that about him, don't get me wrong, but there's more to life."

"I agree."

"Of course you do, you have a million different interests, which is why you barely sleep," she teases him, bumping her hip against his. "I don't even know where you find the time to do anything at all. You take on too much."

"Not enough, I'm a man that likes to stay busy."

"Yeah, but at least you stay busy with things other than wrestling. Paul and I have nothing to talk about anymore. So he goes off with Shawn and they talk wrestling all the time, that's _all_ they talk about and you are my new buddy who I can go out with and do things with."

"Sounds like you aren't happy," he tells her gently, not wanting to upset her. He thinks back to that anonymous person, the one who wants him with Stephanie. If Paul's not having an affair, then who wants them together. And if that person wants them together, did they know about the problems between Paul and Stephanie? No, no, that's just a crazy prank, that's all it is.

She looks like she's thinking and then she looks up at him earnestly, "I guess we're not."

"I'm sorry."

"Don't be," she says, as she pulls him back onto the ferry.

"You can talk to me about it," he lets her know and she kisses his cheek for that. He ignores the way his skin now feels.

"Thank you, but I'll be okay. Every marriage hits a rough spot every now and then and this is probably no exception. I don't know, maybe I should become one of those people who has kids to save the marriage, you know," she jokes and he wonders if she bottles things up inside.

He becomes emboldened and he reaches out to touch her head, starting at her hair, letting it trail down her slight waves and then to her cheek where he takes a moment to cup it. He doesn't exactly know what he's doing, but he doesn't much care at all. She stares at him and they're sharing a moment, he can tell that. She doesn't look uncomfortable with the touch and he hope his face isn't red or embarrassed.

"You don't have to keep things bottled in there, Steph, if you don't want them to be." He just wants her to know, that's all.

"I know," she tells him, her voice low, her eyes darting around. She is keenly aware of the people who are there, milling in and waiting around. She takes his hand from her face, giving it a squeeze before she brings both her hand and his to her lap. "I appreciate it, Chris, but I'm not going to suddenly burst into tears. It's not my style. I'm a McMahon and we face things head-on and we don't keep things bottled up, haven't you learned that about us by now?"

He laughs, it's true, they don't. "Okay, I get it, but if you ever need to talk--"

She interrupts him, "Yes, I know, you'll be there."

Chris wipes away something in his eyes as he walks through his hallway. He doesn't want to believe it's a tear, but it might be. He didn't cry at the cemetery, but here, walking down the lonely hallway in the lonely house, he might cry. He does not fill his house with her haunting voice or the disembodied voices of children that could have been. He is not that kind of man, but maybe that one tear wants to escape to show that he can still feel because he, unlike Stephanie, is alive. But maybe it wasn't a tear at all.

He continues to walk, into the living room, past his fireplace to the kitchen when he stops. He just cold stops and turns to his right, rushing over to his mantel littered with pictures, some as old as when he was a child, sitting next to his beloved grandma. Some as new as a few weeks ago when he, Adam, and Jay went fishing, cigars hanging out of their mouths as the sun sets behind them. But these are not like those. This picture is something he has never seen before. He picks it up, like it will be a hologram and his hand will pass right through it, it doesn't and he's looking down at it. He looks around, but there's nobody there and he knows there is nobody else in his home. He stares at it, this foreign object, then he smiles and that smile grows wider by the moment. It's a funny picture, one from Pier 39, in one of those fake prison cells to make them look like the person had just escaped Alcatraz. The thing that makes this picture so different and so new?

It's him and Stephanie.


	6. Chapter 6

A/N: Thanks for all the reviews. Glad everyone is digging the story because I think I've found a direction for it, which relieves me very much as I was just kind of blindly going forward with no clear conclusion, but I think I have it now so full steam ahead! Enjoy the chapter and if you want to leave a review, I won't turn you away, I promise. :)

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FixtheBrkn: thanks

Chris looks up at his laptop screen when he hears the familiar ding of his instant messenger. He's been reading a magazine, his laptop perched in front of him on the small table of his hotel room. He puts his propped up feet back on the ground and leans forward, pushing his mouse around and presses the button, making the message sit on top of the other programs he's had opened. He groans when he sees it's from the mystery person. He wonders if they've been waiting around for him to be on or something. He should just block it, but the aura of mystery surrounding it makes him stop. He kind of wants to figure out what's really going on.

IAmIrvine: what are you talking about?

FixtheBrkn: you and Stephanie.

IAmIrvine: what about me and Stephanie?

FixtheBrkn: you've been out with her.

Chris looks over at the picture sitting on his mantle. He smiles at it again. He can't believe it's there. Sometimes he finds himself walking by it just to see it and then he picks it up and touches it, making sure it is actually real. There's always a small thrill of exhilaration when it proves to be real. He wonders (hopes) that there will be more and he scours his eyes at least five times a day to see if there will be more. There hasn't been yet, but he feels like maybe there will be, so he looks again and the process repeats itself.

IAmIrvine: yeah, so what?

FixtheBrkn: thank you

IAmIrvine: Stephanie is my friend, what's it to you? You go out with your friends, that's what you do!

Chris laughs at his former self. He's still as much of a hothead now as he was then. Time hasn't changed him _that_ much.

IAmIrvine: I can hang out with who I want and it has nothing to do with anything you've said, trust me

FixtheBrkn: I'm sure it doesn't

Except he knows it does. He knows because he knows his own self, knows that there were so many wasted moments with Stephanie and now that he has some moments, even if they're merely a few measly seconds in the grand scheme of time. He has a little something to hold onto right now, even if it's nowhere near how much time he wants with her. He wants every moment with her and one day, hopefully soon, he'll wake up to her.

IAmIrvine: it doesn't. I don't care what you do or who you're doing. But you know what, if you're sleeping with Paul, then you're scum, hell, you're probably scum anyways for bugging me, but if you're sleeping with her husband, you're absolute scum.

FixtheBrkn: why is that?

He wants to hear it from himself. Wants to see for himself the jealousy that's creeping into his own self. Here, in his timeline, that jealousy came one year too late. It only came after it was already too late to have something tangible to be jealous over. He could only be jealous with the time Paul received with Stephanie that he never had the opportunity to get.

IAmIrvine: because she's a good person, okay, she's a great person and she doesn't deserve to be cheated on, have you ever spoken to her?

FixtheBrkn: I have

IAmIrvine: then you would know how amazing she is and you wouldn't be boffing her husband!

He's so mad at this person, whoever they are. He's mad at Paul too if it's true. Stephanie says that it's not and she sounds adamant when she says it, but how can she possibly know? Paul has plenty of opportunities to sneak off and have an affair with someone and maybe he has so much power he thinks he can get away with it. Stephanie doesn't really know what he does when he says he's going off with Shawn. Maybe Stephanie is just too trusting and all this time Paul has been sleeping around on her. If he has, that man is going to get it and Chris will deliver it personally.

FixtheBrkn: you think she's amazing?

IAmIrvine: you think she isn't?

FixtheBrkn: why is she amazing?

IAmIrvine: I don't have to explain a damn thing to you

FixtheBrkn: I'm just curious

IAmIrvine: why, so you have some sort of fodder to get her out of the picture. You know, in fact, why don't you take Paul because if you're fucking him, he doesn't deserve her in the first place!

FixtheBrkn: I never said anything

IAmIrvine: whatever, fuck off!

Chris signs off and wants to slam down the screen of his laptop, but doesn't want to break it and he thinks he might with how angry he is at the moment. He doesn't care who this person is anymore, they're not going to say anything about Stephanie. Now that he's gotten to know Stephanie better and consider her a genuine friend he's not going to stand for this. He has to find out if Paul is cheating on her. He has to find out the truth so that he can get to the bottom of who this is. This person wants him with Stephanie, while he is attracted to her and finds himself more attracted to her by the moment, he's not going to have anyone hurt her, especially some bitch who doesn't really care about her.

He takes a deep breath and tries to calm himself down. He's expecting her any moment, she told him when they spoke earlier that Paul had an annual check-up for his quads this weekend and so he wasn't traveling this weekend. So she was all alone until Raw and she said she needed company on the big empty bus. There was more than one bed inside, but he'd be in the same close proximity as her for a whole weekend. It was going to be a challenge for him, but he wasn't going to try anything. Being attracted to someone didn't mean they lost their manners.

She knocks on the door about ten minutes later and he stands up, dusting himself off like the conversation he'd just had was somehow clinging to him like a film. He walks to the door and opens it and sees her bright face, a face he knows not yet will be gone from his life in a year if things don't change, but they are already changing as he stands there, so maybe, but no, he does not know that yet. She reaches forward to hug him before walking into his room.

"Hey, roomie," she says jokingly, beaming. "Thanks for staying with me by the way. It's just, the bus, by myself, it's really lonely spending hours by myself. Paul thinks it's a good idea to have you with me too so I'm not at truck stops pretty much by myself. He worries."

"I bet he does," he says and he didn't mean to make that sound as caustic as it did.

She tilts her head and regards him, "What do you mean?" She's picked up on his tone and he's not surprised, he wasn't exactly hiding it all that well.

He has to cover or else explain all the weird stuff going on and he'd rather not accuse her husband of adultery when all he has is some anonymous person over the internet. "Nothing, just that it's nice of him to worry about you so much, just, I bet he does worry about you."

She didn't look like she was buying it, but she shrugs after a few moments, "It is nice of him, he's great."

"Is he?"

He's letting these feelings creep into him when he has no evidence that anything is going on. He's got to stop. As far as he knows, Paul hasn't done anything to warrant bolts of anger shooting through him. "Yeah, he's pretty great when he wants to be."

"Good, good," Chris said.

"So are you ready?" she asks. "Because we've got to go in a few if we're going to keep to our schedule. I don't want to leave late, I hate leaving late."

"I have noticed that you're very prompt," he tells her, trying to make the tension he was just letting out disappear.

"I like to be on time, that's all," she peeks into his room and groans. "Chris, you're not even packed yet! I told you what time I was coming, what were you _doing_?"

"I just have to put a few things in my bag and then I'll be ready to go," he tells her. "I got caught up online, someone was messaging me and I had to answer them, it was this whole thing, I just lost track of time a little bit, but I swear, I'm almost ready. I just have to throw my things together, I swear."

"Here, let me help," she says, going over and grabbing some of his clothes.

"I can take care of this," he says, rushing over lest she find something embarrassing. He doesn't want to be embarrassed around Stephanie.

"I'll turn off your computer then," she tells him and he panics for a moment, wondering if he left the messenger on, but he exited it completely so the messages are lost to the ages, thank God. He doesn't know what he would say if she found out he was talking about her and what the subject matter was. He didn't want her to find out this way.

"So Paul's gone for the weekend, huh?" Chris asks, acting like he's making small talk. "Why didn't you go with him?"

"Because it's boring," she tells him. "He's going to the doctor, I don't need to be there. It's just a thing he has to do to make sure all the wires are okay, nothing's loose or need further surgery. You wouldn't know because you've never been injured, but it's pretty routine to go in every year to make sure everything is going alright with the bionic man."

"I understand that, I just thought you'd want to go with him because he's your husband."

"I don't think he likes me there," she admits, "and I'm okay with that."

"Kind of weird how he doesn't seem to want you around so much."

"Oh come on, Chris, don't tell me that you're starting to buy into all that crap too? What have you heard now? Was he doing someone in the men's locker room? On top of a car? Unless I see it with my own eyes, I'm not jumping to conclusions and you shouldn't either."

"I know, I'm not," he lies because he is and she's right, but he kind of wants her to be wrong and for him to be right. He knows it's selfish of him to wish her a broken heart. He knows they have nothing in common, that things are not kosher in her marriage, but to wish the end of someone's marriage just felt too wrong for him, something he didn't want fall into.

"Good, besides, he obviously trusts me with you."

"Yeah, that's true."

"He could very easily have rebuffed the idea of me being in such close proximity to you, but he trusts me and I trust him, that's the long and short of it, got it," she tells him, pretending to glare at him.

"Got it, got it," he surrenders with a laugh.

"Hey, you just got an e-mail," she tells him.

"Who from?" he asks as he shoves a pair of shorts into his bag.

"Um, from some address, past mistake 709 at gmail," she tells him, "who's that? Your _girlfriend_," she teases.

"No, I've never heard of that e-mail before in my life, what's the subject line?" he asks.

"There isn't one, should I check it, do you have good virus protection?" she jokes.

"Just check it and tell me what it says so we can go and you can be on time, oh precious one," he tells her as he shoves the last of his clothes into his bag and zips it up.

"Okay, checking, checking," she speaks as she reaches for the touchpad and clicks on the e-mail.

"What's it say?"

"I don't know, it's weird," she responds.

"Weird how? What does it say?"

"I think she's pretty amazing too."


	7. Chapter 7

A/N: Thanks for the reviews of the last chapter, glad you liked it. this was updated as a request to someone so I hope that it doesn't disappoint them. Anyways, hope the chapter is enjoyable and that you like it and if you want to review it, then I hope you do, it always makes my day! :)

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"Who do you think is amazing?"

She asks him, but he pretends to not hear her or that he's too busy or something to do before she inquires even further. Or he at least wants some excuse so he doesn't have to tell her the truth, that he finds her pretty damn amazing. What hasn't entered his mind yet is the fact that this person, whom he assumes to be the mystery person that has been hounding him for a while now thinks that Stephanie is amazing too. That's strange, but he hasn't thought of that yet. It will probably come to him later, when his mind isn't racing with explanations.

"Chris, who's amazing?" she asks again, then she sits up in her seat a little and he fears that she knows that it's her he was talking about. If she does know, he can explain it away that he just thinks she's an amazing friend, which she is, not that she's an amazing anything else because frankly they aren't really anything else, no matter how attracted he is to her. She's off-limits, she's Paul's, not his and he understands that.

"Um, nobody," he answers, thinking, hoping that she'll drop it.

She does not as she bounces in her seat a little, "Oh my God, Chris," she speaks and it's high-pitched and tinged with excitement, "is there a diva or something that you like, is there someone you have a crush on?"

"What, are we in middle school?" he jokes because joking is easy and it covers up whatever else he might be feeling right now, whatever that feeling is that he is suppressing. He almost feels like he's suppressing a lot when he's around Stephanie, which as time passes is more and more. Not that he minds, not really because he likes her and he likes spending time with her.

"Men can have crushes, crushes can exist all the time, even if you're a really old man you can have a crush," she tells him, then almost seems like she wants to clap her hands in excitement. "Who is it, who is it?" she wants to know and he doesn't want to tell her. Well, maybe part of him wants to tell her, but that part is being stamped down right now.

"It's nobody, I was just talking about…Lady Gaga…" He's not sure where the hell _that_ came from, but since everyone and their mother seems to be creaming over the woman, he figures that it's an appropriate if not a little odd answer.

"Lady Gaga? The singer?" she says and it's obvious she's trying not to snicker.

"I think she's got some really good songs," he tells her, trying to save face. "I mean, people are saying she's pretty revolutionary and innovative and just what the pop scene needs."

"And some people say she's just like Madonna, but like the poor man's Madonna," Stephanie shoots back at him and he smiles at her. "I can't believe you think she's amazing, I might have to rethink this entire friendship. It could be a deal-breaker."

"You wouldn't," Chris pretends to be aghast, "_that_ would be a deal-breaker. If I were a guy who picked my nose and then wiped it on your shirt, then yes, stop being friends with me by all means, but because I happen to like a particular artist?"

"I'm a harsh and cruel mistress," she responds and he thinks about her in some latex catsuit, whip in hand, her hair in a high ponytail and is he really thinking about Stephanie being a dominatrix? Does he really want to let _those_ thoughts into his mind when he's about to spend days with her on a very cramped, very small bus? "Now, before I really do start to hit you or whatever, can we please go, we're already off schedule."

"Yeah, we can go," he snatches up the computer, that offensive item and instead of throwing it out the window like he wants to, he puts it back in its case and zips it up. Stephanie grabs it from him, shoulder it and he wants to take it from her, but she shakes her head and is already out the door by the time he can even pretend to protest. He zips up his luggage and puts it on the ground as he rolls it behind him and goes after her.

Her bus is sitting downstairs, waiting for him. They have a driver, which Chris should have expected because he can't picture Paul sitting behind the big wheel and driving anywhere. There's a partition that slides between the driver and the rest of the bus so as soon as he steps on they are alone for all intents and purposes and though he has been on the bus a couple times since they've been friends, it has never felt quite as small as it does now. She's given him the official tour and he knows there are a couple bunk beds leading to the "master bedroom," and that will be where he sleeps. He sets his bag on one of those beds and then goes and sits at the little dinette area they have set up. She comes over and sits across from him as Chris hears the bus start up and they start rolling.

"Thank you again for coming to stay with me for the weekend," she tells him, but she need not thank him so much. He should be thanking her for getting to spend time with her. Somewhere in the future, there is a man who is thankful for getting to spend any kind of time with her. "I know that we're going to have our very own grand adventure!"

"Through the Midwest?" he laughs.

"Of course, where better to have one?" she wonders. "You always have those silly little rest stops and we have to find all of them and then stop and take silly pictures with things like the world's biggest ball of yarn or that place entirely made out of corn! We'll stop at them all and buy crappy souvenirs and then you can give them for Christmas presents and people will _hate_ you, but that's half the fun."

"I have a feeling you've done this," he tells her, loving her enthusiasm. Whenever he sees Paul, he's always so intense and focused and he can't imagine him "having an adventure" like Stephanie just told him. He sees Paul just wanting to wrestle over and over again and then study his wrestling over and over again. Once again, he does not see anything in common between Stephanie and Paul and if that is the case, then he can't see Paul as being completely faithful, though now that he thinks about it…

The person said that they thought Stephanie was amazing as well. If they thought that and they were cheating with Paul, why would they think she was amazing? Unless they meant something like she was amazingly stupid. If Paul were cheating right under her nose then this person could think she was amazingly stupid and gullible for not realizing what was going on. If that's the case, it makes him want to seek out this person and shake them, telling them all the wonderful things about Stephanie.

Then her hand is on his and he stares down at it as she brings him back from wherever his mind went. "Well, I did when I was younger, when I used to travel with my parents. There wasn't a lot for a girl to do on the road as you traveled from place to place. My parents were so overprotective of me that they wouldn't let me stay home alone even though I was a teenager at the time so I'd come along and I'd have to occupy my time somehow, right?"

"So you would find cheesy things to do?" he says.

"Yeah."

"But you don't do that with Paul?"

"Not so much," Stephanie answers, "Paul is a little bit more serious, which isn't a bad thing."

"Just one of those things you were talking about before," he remembers how she said that they were different, how they weren't really happy, rough spots, but then, Paul didn't want her to be alone on this trip, was fine with him coming along, was that just him not caring about Stephanie or him genuinely concerned for her safety?

"Chris, Paul and I will be fine" she explains to him. "It's just one of those things that you have to work around, get over, you know. Nothing is wrong between us, it's just not completely right. And please don't believe those rumors, I swear, he's not cheating on me."

As far as she knew, Chris thinks to himself. He can't help but let those thoughts into his brain, but he has to put them out of his brain for now because if he lets himself think about them, being in such close proximity to her, he might do something stupid, like pull her hands towards him and then lean over this table and kiss her, just gently, just their mouths pressing together, nothing more. Yes, he might just do that and he doesn't think she would actually appreciate that. Or she might. Maybe she's just looking for a better situation, a situation that he can give her if he'd let him. He knows that he can give to her if she would just let him.

"I believe you," he says instead because he doesn't think starting off their road trip with a fight is the best idea with such close quarters.

"You don't seem to," she observes, "but that's okay, nobody's asking you to believe anything I say."

"I just worry about you," he tells her, holding back from spilling everything. "I don't want you to get hurt."

"Do you know something I don't?" she asks and he thinks about telling her what he's heard, what he might know, but it really is all conjecture and hearsay and he could very well be making it up because it suits him.

"No, I don't, I mean, he's your husband, if anyone should know what their husband is doing, I guess it would be his wife."

"Or his wife is really the _last_ to know," she laughs, "make yourself comfortable, mi casa es su casa for the weekend. So live it up, Mr. Irvine."

"How can I live it up on a bus?" he wonders and she grabs his hand and then pulls him over to a couch, pushing his shoulders down so he sits. She goes over to a wall and opens a panel with a bunch of electronics and then opens another panel with a whole stack of DVD's.

"What do you want to watch?" she asks. "We have a ton of stuff."

"I don't care, you can choose," he tells her and she nods, pulling something from the pile and putting it into the DVD player, turning on the plasma screen they have sitting on the far end of the bus. She finishes with that and comes to sit next to him and she's actually cuddling him at the moment.

It makes him wonder if Paul _is_ cheating, who is to say that Stephanie can't very well do the same thing? He just automatically thinks her as innocent, but with her cuddling up to him now, he has to wonder if maybe she isn't so innocent. He doesn't know the true nature of her relationship with Paul, but maybe she simply wouldn't care because perhaps she's the same way. Maybe she wants to cheat as well, maybe she _has_ cheated. Stephanie isn't the innocent creature that he thinks her sometimes, he knows this because he's seen her with business dealings, the way she can take charge and then take someone down the next second. She can be ruthless, but he wants to believe she is that innocent creature.

In a not so distant future, Chris keeps seeing signs of her popping all over his house. He relishes each one. He remembers too, he remembers these moments and feels them and yet, she's nowhere to be found and he starts to wonder if it's all futile. They said he could fix one past mistake, but what if that mistake cannot be fixed. Death is so permanent, what if it's just entrenched in a life, that no matter the circumstances, no matter how hard you work to avoid it, your death is inevitable, a set moment that cannot be changed. He wants to believe that she'll come back, but he knows, even unwittingly though it is, that it might not happen. He hopes to wake up one morning and see her smiling face back at him, but this whole operation could fail.

At least he's getting the memories.


	8. Chapter 8

A/N: Thanks to all the reviewers out there, you rock. I really, really like this chapter and had a blast writing it and so I hope that you all really, really like it too. If you do, then feel free to leave me a review. Enjoy! :)

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_When a butterfly flutters its wings in one part of the world, it can eventually cause a hurricane in another._

He suddenly feels the need to go see Paul. He realizes that he's not the only one who can possibly be changed by the contact he's had with his former self. Her family has to have noticed the pictures or the memories and Paul has to as well. Maybe it's really for selfish reasons that he wants to go see Paul. There are now pictures in his house of Stephanie and if there are pictures in his house, what does it imply about _her_ house? Will the same be there? He's curious and he wants to see if there is, wants more proof that his past self is changing the future.

Nobody has seriously sat down and talked to Paul in a very long time, years maybe. So withdrawn is he that nobody even bothers talking to him. He's more of a ghost than Stephanie at this point. He floats through the air and you see him, but nothing seems to touch him. He even keeps the promos short and Chris knows that people say he's even more intense now, more focused on the prize, the coveted belt, but it's not that at all. His mouth can't seem to form words, but his eyes are still able to form infinite sadness. Talking to him will be no easy task, but maybe part of the journey he's taking has to include Paul. If things go the way he wants, if things change to the future he wanted since the moment he found out about Stephanie, then things will change drastically for Paul and it's about time someone got into his head.

He plans the trip for the next weekend and he doesn't tell Paul that he's coming, not that he could. Paul comes and goes so breezily, he's hard to pin down. He's nervous when he finally arrives in Connecticut; nervous for what he might find and nervous for what he might not find. If Stephanie were back, Paul would not be acting the way he is so she must still be in that grave, a shadow still just out of his reach. He goes to Paul's house, but hesitates at the door. He rubs his hands together, warming them from some invisible cold that seems to envelope the house. The front yard is well-kept enough, Paul must employ gardeners, but there's no cheeriness in anything. There are no flowers, just neatly mowed grass and bushes and a few trees dotting the yard and casting a shadow on the door. Stephanie likes flowers. He hadn't known that a few days ago, but then it suddenly appeared, blossoming in his brain.

He finally rings the doorbell and stands there, waiting. After a few minutes, there's a gruff, "Who's there?" that comes from the other side of the door.

Chris clears his throat and looks at the door as if he can see Paul on the other side, see through the wood. "It's Chris…Chris Irvine."

He waits and waits and expects Paul to turn back around and go back to doing what he was doing, which was probably being the zombie of routine that he has been since Stephanie's death. But then Paul opens the door, just a crack and stares through it at him. "What the hell do you want?" His voice sounds odd, fuzzy, as if he's not really talking or as if he hasn't talked in a very long time. It's gruff and sad and unused.

"I wanted to come talk to you," Chris tells him, hoping he sounds diplomatic enough.

"I don't want to talk to you or anyone for that matter."

Paul goes to close the door, but Chris places his hand on the flat, wooden surface to stop him. A battle of wills at this point. "Please, can I talk to you?"

"What about?"

"I want to talk to you about Stephanie," Chris says and he watches as Paul visibly flinches at the mention of her. After all this time, it still hurts him, this pin pricking at him, always pricking at him, a slow bleeding wound.

"I don't want to talk about her."

"I _do_," Chris says emphatically.

"Well, I _don't_," Paul said, just as emphatically and he pushes the door closed another half inch.

"I was her friend," Chris says, "you were her…husband." That word still chokes his throat because it's wrong and he's trying, well, a part of him is trying to rectify it. Then this confrontation will be nothing more than a wisp of stale air. "Don't you want to talk about her? Aren't you sick of the way that you're living?"

"I'm living fine," Paul tells him, but Chris shakes his head. "You are in no position to judge me, Irvine, got it. You have no idea about my life."

"We all do, everyone who sees you at work knows _exactly_ how you're living," Chris tells him and somehow the door is pushing open and Chris is going through and Paul is backing up. Chris seems bigger at this moment than Paul. Yes, Paul has a good few inches on him, but those inches seem to disappear as Paul inverts himself.

"Look, I know you were like Stephanie's best friend, but this is none of your business, _I'm_ none of your business."

Her best friend. He knows he should be focusing on Paul, talking to Paul, but those words, they mean more to him than Paul could even imagine. If Paul thinks that, then maybe…does everyone not notice the changes that he does? He can feel his memories changing and forming in his brain, shaping the way he sees things, but does anyone else? He never even thought about that, just assuming that they noticed the changes as well, but maybe they didn't. This was his destiny he was changing, but Paul wasn't changing anything so did he just inherit the memories?

"Best friend," Chris echoes.

"Yeah, her best friend and I don't need to be reminded of how you reacted to her death, okay, is that what you're finally here to do?" Paul asks and now Chris is even more confused. Are there things that happened that he just doesn't remember at all? Events he was a part of that are now forgotten? Surely there must be, there's no way he could remember every small moment.

"I don't…I don't remember," Chris tells him, wracking his brain trying to figure out what Paul meant. The timeline was changing slowly so would whatever Paul was about to tell him suddenly change when he changed the past more? It had to so whatever he'd said to Paul would eventually disappear.

"You don' t _remember_," now Paul is angry and glaring at him. "You blamed me for Stephanie's death!"

"What? No…I'd never…" Chris can't believe that. He can't believe he would be so callous as to blame this man. It was an accident, he knew that, but yes, yes, now that he thought about, yes, he remembered it, a new memory sailing its way through his mind, clear as day. Now he was reminded of it, now it came. But it wouldn't be real soon, it wouldn't be there soon. It would all change.

_"You bastard, how could you!" Chris yelled._

_"Shut up! Shut up! Shut up!" Paul yelled, trying to block out Chris's screams._

_"How could you let her die! You were supposed to protect her, you were her husband and you let her die!"_

_"I didn't let her die!" Paul said, "I didn't let her die!"_

He doesn't want to remember anymore. He could almost feel the hurt and revulsion pulsing through his veins as he yelled at an innocent man. "I was angry," Chris whispers, looking up at Paul. "I didn't know what I was saying. It was the grief taking over."

"Yeah, well, you said your piece so just get out of here, okay?"

Chris finally looks around. If there's any light in the house, he can't see it. It's as if the entire house is engulfed in some odd darkness. There's dust all over the place and everything is covered in a thick layer of it. It almost chokes Chris just thinking about how much he must be inhaling. He looks over Paul's shoulder into what must be the dining room. There are papers strewn about on the table and they have a thick layer of dust obscuring them and Chris figures it's about three years worth of it. They must have been Stephanie's papers. He blinks and suddenly he knows the entire layout of her house.

And then the past overwhelms him.

Chris laughs as Stephanie unlocks the door. "Come on inside."

"Are you sure Paul won't mind?" Chris asks, looking around the bright, cheery house. Stephanie had to be the one who decorated. There are far too many kitschy things in the house to be Paul's doing.

"It's my house too," Stephanie tells him, then grabs his hand, "come on. You're free to crash here until you go home tomorrow."

"Paul's not back from Alabama yet?" Chris asks, wondering why it would take so long for him to come back home. Could it be that the check-up was some kind of cover and he's really off having this affair that he's sure he's having.

"No, he'll probably be back on Wednesday," Stephanie shrugs. "Since he's down there, he might actually go stay at Shawn's for a while. He likes to check in on him every once in a while."

That makes almost no sense to Chris, but he just shrugs along with her, "They're like, best friends, huh?"

"Yeah, have been for a while," Stephanie says, taking his bag and leading him upstairs. She leads him to a room and throws in the bag, then grabs his hand and leads him downstairs and to the living room. They crash down on the couch and Stephanie smiles at him, "Okay, so how fun was this weekend?"

"I'm not even going to get the tour of the house?" he wonders with a laugh. "And you call yourself a host?"

"I'll give you one later, now let's talk about the epic weekend we had together!"

The way she smiles at him disarms him. It's warmer than any smile he's yet received from her, like now they have something of their own. This weekend on her bus has solidified something for them and it's made him question a lot of things. Being in such close proximity to her, he couldn't help but start to feel something for her, something more intimate and coupled with his suspicions of Paul, he's stupidly letting those feelings expand. He shouldn't, but he does anyways because he likes the feeling he gets while around her. He likes that stomach shaking feeling of being around her, the fluttering in his chest and the tremble of his fingers as she grasps them in her own. He likes _her_.

"It _was_ epic."

"You're hilarious," she tells him, leaning her head against the back of the couch. "Why didn't you tell me how utterly hilarious you are?"

"I thought you knew," he tells her.

"I didn't, but I know now," she says and then grabs his hand again and he loves that tremble. "You know, you're like my best friend and I'm not exactly sure how that happened."

He's not either, sure he has an idea, but he doesn't know how he let himself get this deep. But if he thinks about it, then he's going to face more truths than he's comfortable with and if he doesn't remember himself, he might just lean across this couch and kiss her. And if the look on her face is any indication, he's not entirely sure she would be against the idea. He shakes himself free from the thought, "Hey, so why don't you give me that tour now?"

The Chris of the future opens his eyes and he looks around again. Every little kitschy object is still there, just as he remembered it all. The pictures are different though, more of him, more of Stephanie and there are some he doesn't yet remember, some that he must have forgotten and his chest feels as tight as Paul's must feel every moment of everyday. Unwittingly, in this whole thing, he's linked Paul and himself together for however long it take to change the future the way he wants and even after that, they will be linked because in his dream, in his waking world, he wants Paul to be her ex-husband.

"Nothing's changed," Chris says, more to himself than Paul, but Paul hears.

"I couldn't bear to move anything," Paul says, looking around. "I couldn't even move the coffee mug she'd left in the sink before we left. It's still there. I always just wash around it."

"If things could change, Paul, if everything could change, would you be okay with that?" Chris asks, side-glancing at Paul. "If none of this ended up real, if Stephanie ended up alive, but not with you, would you want that?"

"If it meant having her here, then yes, I wouldn't mind the change." The way Paul says it, Chris thinks that maybe he knows that things are changing, that Chris is inserting himself in Stephanie's life and that he knows the inevitable will come, the moment when the man in front of him will win the woman they both miss so much it cuts them into these strange half-men, incapable of really living. Chris doesn't ask though because the silence is enough for him to keep it to himself. If Paul is experiencing it, what is there to say really?

"I agree," Chris says simply. "I don't think I would have moved anything either."

"She just has that affect on people," Paul tells him, then corrects himself, "She just_ had_ that affect on people."

Chris feels compelled to correct him, tell him that he's going to make that has again, he's going to bring her back again. He can't bring himself to say it though because he doesn't know if he can change that past. He's trying, but she's not here yet. He won't hear her footsteps above him, running down the hallway and hopping down the last of the steps to get to him, give him a hug and tell him that she watched him on Raw and he's amazing. She's not here and she may never be. So he says the only thing he can think of that might reassure Paul that he's trying, really trying to change the past.

"Paul, her death is not your fault."


	9. Chapter 9

A/N: Thanks so much for the reviews, I really hope the story isn't confusing. I wasn't sure about the ending of this chapter, so if you want to leave a review and tell me what you think, that'd be a really big help because I'm not sure where I'm going with this. Anyways, I hope you enjoy. :)

* * *

He wants to kiss her.

He wants to steal her breath away.

He wants her to kiss him back.

He wants her to leave her husband.

He wants _her_.

He tries to temper these feelings, push them down, but when the feelings are so strong, it gets harder and harder to do so. When he spends so much time with her, he can't help but let these feelings stream out, little by little, like air leaking from a balloon. Then when he thinks that she's married, he feels deflated. Then, against his better judgment, he sincerely hopes that her husband is cheating her. After that thought, he berates himself for wishing her that kind of pain.

Or at least he thinks there would be pain, but as the days go by, he's not sure there would be. "Stephanie?" he says one day when they're taking a hike. Stephanie, he finds, loves the outdoors. She drags him to all these trails that he would never have even thought of otherwise. He's never been a hiker, but he finds he loves the solitude of it and if they're hiking through the mountains, the view from the top is almost as breathtaking as she is.

She looks back at him and stops. They're surrounded by trees and the sounds of the forest and while he doesn't think that it's romantic, it has its own cache in a strange way. "Yeah?" she asks.

"Nothing, it can wait until we get to the top," he tells her and she smiles and reaches her hand for him. He takes it and she lugs him up a few steps and then lets go before they continue on in silence. He can't say that he hates the view though, her pants hugging her ass every time she takes a step up. He's glad that she can't see his face because he's sure that he has a look of lust in his eyes and though he tries to stop it, it's hard.

So they make it to the top and it's a beautiful view and they take a seat on top of the mountain and she grabs her backpack, taking out the lunch they brought. Peanut butter and jelly sandwiches; he almost feels like a kid again, sitting out at lunch, except the view is a lot nicer and the company a lot better. She hands him his sandwich and the first bite after a long hike is always the best he finds. He grabs his own backpack and takes out the waters they've kept stored in there specifically for their lunch and sets hers down next to her.

"Paul hates hiking," Stephanie tells him as they sit there. "I go alone a lot because of it. It's nice to have the company."

"I'm not surprised."

"By what? The fact that it's nice to have company or the fact that Paul hates hiking?" she jokes.

"Hiking, it doesn't seem like it would be his thing," Chris says, "in fact, what _is_ his thing? You two don't seem to have anything in common and the door to his office at your house was locked. Don't you find that weird?"

"Well, for one, he likes bodybuilding competitions," she tells him. He snickers. He can't help himself. He knew that Paul was into weightlifting and everything, but he doesn't keep himself abreast of Paul's extracurricular activities such as it was. "What?"

"I'm sorry, but that's such a weird hobby."

"Aren't all hobbies weird in some way?"

"I don't think your hiking hobby is weird."

"Hiking isn't a hobby, it's an activity, but I would say my penchant for weird souvenirs is kind of odd, wouldn't you say? Then you're like some idiot savant with metal music, so I would say that's a little weird."

"Metal music is _not_ weird," he says defensively, pretending to be outraged at the mere assumption that something he likes is weird.

"To the level that you do, Chris, you took me into what you refer to as your metal room. Now at first, I thought that it was going to be a room entirely made of metal, which, as it were, would probably be a weirder hobby, but you have so much metal stuff that it's a little weird."

"I'm not weird," he says, but it's in a way that lets her know he's joking with her. "Okay, so this bodybuilding thing, does he actually go to events and stuff?"

"Yeah, he does, when he has the time. He likes weights, but hasn't anyone told you that sometimes opposites attract. Is it so farfetched that I could enjoy the man's company without having to share the same hobbies with him?"

"I guess it's not," Chris says thoughtfully, rubbing his chin a little as he takes another bite of his sandwich, waiting for the peanut butter to get unstuck from the roof of his mouth. "I just picture couples doing things together. I mean, I've never been married or had a serious relationship-"

"Wait, wait, wait, hold up, before we continue, you've never had a serious relationship?" Stephanie asks incredulously. "You're _how_ old and you have never had a serious relationship, how is that even possible?"

"Hello, wrestler," he responds, gesturing towards himself. "I don't have the time or the patience to maintain a relationship with someone while I'm on the road. I'm not just a wrestler, you know, I do other things and I just don't have time for it. It's not to say that I don't have relationships, I do, they just never last."

"What has been your longest relationship?"

He thinks about it for a moment, going over women in his mind. They tend to fuzz around the edges though and he's not sure if that's because he never really had a long relationship or if Stephanie is causing all of the other women who have entered his life to suddenly fade from his memory. It's probably the former, but he really, really wants to believe in the latter. "Probably around seven months," he finally answers.

She whistles. "Boy, you need to get yourself a real girlfriend."

"Yeah, not sure there's anyone out there who wants me."

"Bullshit," she singsongs to him and he looks over at her. "Do you know how many women and probably a lot of men want you?"

"Yeah, but there's a difference between wanting me and being compatible with me," he tells her. "I mean, look at you and Paul. You guys are nothing alike, but you work…at least you tell me you work. Still haven't explained the office thing."

"The office thing is just a thing, he likes to keep the door locked and I don't really care."

"You're probably the best wife ever, I mean, he could have contraband in there or something or another women locked up in the room," he hints and he's not subtle, but she could always just think he's joking.

"Then I should really start putting plates of food underneath the door for her," Stephanie laughs and then she laughs some more and then she laughs a little bit more and he can't help himself, he's laughing too. They're sitting there, feeling like they're on top of the world and laughter has never felt so good to him. "I let him have his privacy and I have mine."

"Is that why you love him?" he asks.

"What do you mean?"

"Because he lets you keep your independence."

"You think I love him because he lets me still be independent? That's what you're trying to say, right?" she says and he can't tell if she's angry or not. Still, he nods his head and she looks out towards the horizon. "I don't know, I've never thought about it, but I guess it's part of the appeal. I've always been an independent person and I guess I like that."

He scoffs. "I just can't imagine not wanting to be around you."

"Excuse me?"

"How does Paul do it?" Chris asks. "I don't get how he doesn't want to spend every waking moment with you. You are quite possibly the most fascinating, coolest person I've ever met in my entire life. How anyone, let alone your husband, wouldn't want to be around you all the time just doesn't process with me."

"That's one of the sweetest things anyone has ever said to me," she tells him, trying to hold in her grin and he doesn't want her to. He wants to see her smile widely at him. He wants a smile that he can call all his own, that she reserves for him and him alone. "No lie."

"I didn't think you were lying, just wondering why more people don't tell you that."

"I think most people see the person that I portray on television and believe that's really me, but it couldn't be farther from the truth. I'm okay with it though. It just means that I don't have to sign as many autographs, right? Plus, a lot of people think that Paul is off-putting so that helps too," she kids, but he can tell it hurts her a little that everyone sees her like that.

"Well then more time for me then," he tells her and he can tell that she knows he's genuine by the look she's giving him. It's thanks mixed with something else. The breeze is making the hair loose from her ponytail fly against her face and there's a smudge of something on her cheek just under her eye. It must have been when she was resting her hand on some dirt and then rubbed it on her cheek.

He reaches out and touches it, "You have some dirt on your cheek."

"A little dirt never hurt anyone," she says softly and he's aware that her voice is different.

"You're right, but it takes a little bit away from the beauty," he tells her and he doesn't mean it to sound sappy, but it kind of does. She doesn't seem to notice though because she's staring straight at him. He doesn't know if she wants this, but he wants this so bad that he starts to lean in closer. He goes slowly though, not wanting to scare her. His nose nuzzles hers a little bit and their lips are a breath away. He can feel the warm air whooshing from her mouth and onto his lips and her eyes are still open and staring at him. "I want to kiss you."

"We shouldn't," she tells him, her voice so soft that it's almost impossible for him to hear it over the pounding of his heart.

"I know," he tells her, his nose still pushing against hers as he tilts his head to the side a little.

"Chris," she says. "You're my best friend."

"I know," he tells her again, unsure of what else to say. "I can't help it."

"Can't help what?" she wonders.

"Falling for you," he confesses. He starts to lean in a little more, but Stephanie pulls her face away and turns the other way. He pulls back as if burned and he can feel that burning on his cheeks as he looks away too, his eyes focusing back on the horizon even though the view isn't as pretty right now.

"Chris, you shouldn't," she says and it cuts through his heart.

"I can't help it, I said that," he tells her, looking down at the rock their sitting on, wishing an earthquake would come and open up a huge crack that he can fall endlessly through. "I spend more time with you and I just can't help it. I don't understand why Paul won't-"

"Don't bring him into this," she cuts him off and then turns to him. "Please don't bring him into this."

"I think he's cheating on you," Chris admits.

"What? Excuse me?"

"I just, there's been some weird things going on and it just seems."

"I told you not to assume," Stephanie says. "You don't…"

"I'm sorry, I shouldn't have tried to kiss you," he laughs at himself. "God, I guess I was just hoping that you would want to be with me, I don't know, I had this weird…when you were talking and how you want to be independent, I don't know, I just feel like, if I were ever married, I'd want to spend time with my wife, but it's like Paul isn't a part of your life, except for living in the same house, it's like you aren't even together and I guess I just wanted to show you that there are guys that want to spend time with you and do the things you do and…I'm stupid because you're married."

"I am married."

"Yeah, I'm sorry," he says, "I'm stupid and now I have to go down an entire mountain thinking about it and feeling like an idiot."

"Don't," she puts her hand on his and gives it a squeeze. "Believe me, if I wasn't married…"

"If you weren't married…" He wants her to finish her thought.

"If I wasn't married, are you kidding me? I'd probably throw you down right now and what better place to have some fun?" she jokes, trying to ease the mood. It doesn't exactly help because he's still embarrassed about what happened. He wishes he could say something or do something to erase it from her mind, but it happened and he has to live with this awkwardness now and he just hopes that it doesn't affect their friendship.

"That's nice," he tries to remain upbeat and match her joking tone, but it's strained.

"Chris," she simply says, looking at him in sympathy, like she feels sorry for him that he had these feelings at all.

"No, no, it's okay, don't worry, sorry," he shakes his head.

They stare out at the world at their feet and then she says something that shocks him to his very core. "Give me some time, okay?" He stares at her, just staring, not knowing what to say. "Just time, okay?"

"Okay."

In the future, Chris wakes up with a smile on his face.

Something has changed, he can feel it.


	10. Chapter 10

A/N: I had to put one of my dogs to sleep on Sunday, so this chapter will probably suck because I wrote it to get my mind off things. Hope it's not too horrible and if you want to review, that would make me smile, enjoy. :)

* * *

Time.

She'd said she needed time. Chris thinks back to the conversation that in his brain happened years ago. All he has right now is time, time spent without her. Death is such a finality and that's what bothers him the most, he thinks. There's no way to tell if there is an afterlife, you can't go and ask the person if they are in heaven, if they are watching. You go sometimes on blind faith and you hope that there is something more to this life that what happens on this earthly soil. He doesn't want to think of her as final and as he thinks to that conversation about time, he hopes that she didn't take too much of it. Because if she took too much, than all these days ahead of him without her seem longer.

He doesn't like to think about her funeral if he can help it, but it's still in his brain. Learning of her death and coping with it, however badly he did it, however many tears he shed in the privacy of his own room, they still linger in his brain. The events after the conversation with Stephanie are still blank because they're changing and changing rapidly. Before he has time to settle on one thought, one memory, another flits into his brain and he wonders about the ones he's not remembering. He wants to seek out his past self, thank him for getting this far so quickly, but he feels if he interferes than everything might go wrong and he doesn't want to chance it. He doesn't want to take the risk that this will all be ripped away from him, that the Chris he used to be will suddenly find himself in some irreparable situation and will pull away from Stephanie. He just wants to give his former self some of the hope that is now reaching into his chest.

The Chris of the past paces around his locker room. She said she'd needed time. He can do that, he can give her time, but what he really wants to know is what she needs the time for. Is she having the same feelings for him that he is for her? Was she just trying to stall because she wants to divorce her husband? Does she not feel the same way and was just trying to let him down easily? He doesn't know the answers and it's bothering him. He hasn't talked to her in days because he's not sure how to proceed because he doesn't know what she's feeling. He has nobody to talk to about this because nobody knows about his feelings for Stephanie and he wants to accuse Paul of cheating on her, but he has no proof. He feels like he's between a rock and a hard place.

"Call her."

He swings around quickly and sees Lance leaning in the doorway. "Dude, what the hell are you doing here?"

"What do you think, to knock some sense into you," Lance told him and he knew that was a joke from his friend. "Or because I have some of my training school guys trying out before the show and I want to check them out, could be that."

"You always have a way with words, don't you, Storm?" Chris says sarcastically. "And what do you even know about what I'm doing."

"Because I've known you for a long time and I know how you act when there's a woman involved and so I know that there's a woman involved so who is it and what's the problem? For a guy who claims to be so sexy that every woman wants him, you sure seem to have a lot of women troubles. You'd think you would sort all that out by now."

"You'd think," Chris shrugs, "but women are complicated. In my many years of life, that's all I've come away with when it pertains to women, they are complicated. The girl in question is probably the girl that I want…for the long haul."

Lance raises an eyebrow. He's never quite heard Chris say anything like that before so he doesn't know what to really make of it; it's written all over his face. Chris knows he's never thought of anyone like that before. There's never been anyone in his life that he thinks worthy of that honor so Lance knows that Chris means business; that he's serious about what he's saying. If he wasn't swayed by Chris's words, Chris's face says everything his words didn't. Chris looks openly at Lance, showing him without words that this is absolutely his true feelings.

"Wow," Lance says, knowing the brevity of Chris's words. "So she must be something special."

"She's something else," Chris tells him, smiling as he thinks about the enigma that is Stephanie McMahon. She's nothing like he expected and yet everything that he expected all at the same time. She's perfect in her own strange way and every time he finds out something new about her, she rises in his estimation.

"Who is it?"

"I probably shouldn't tell you," Chris says because well, she's married, but then he almost wants to burst with the news, so he goes ahead and tells anyways, "but it's Stephanie. I'm in love with Stephanie. I didn't mean to or anything, but…I think Paul is having an affair."

"Whoa, whoa, whoa," Lance stops him from going any further, "that's a lot of information to give me in a short amount of time, so let's talk this through. First of all, when have you ever spent any time with Stephanie, enough to fall in love with her?"

"Well, shows what you know," Chris says, "because we've actually been spending a lot of time together. And the more time I spend with her, the more time I want to spend with her. I just can't help it. Did you know she's amazing? Because she is. Everything about her. She likes to go hiking, did you even know that?"

Lance looks at him strangely, like he's lost his mind and maybe he has, maybe Stephanie has made him lose his mind. He wouldn't be surprised by anything she could do to him anymore. She was _that_ wonderful. "I did not know that, but I don't think she broadcasts it."

"She also loves to by souvenirs every time she's in a new place and not just serious ones, but dumb ones too, her house is filled with them."

"Okay, I get it, you've spent a lot of time with Stephanie, still, in love with her?"

"I am, I can't…I wouldn't want to either. I've found her, man, I've found her and it's Stephanie." He can't help but gush and he sounds like a teenager, but it's Stephanie and she does this to him.

"She's married, but you think Paul is cheating on her?" Lance moves onto the next piece of information.

"Yeah, so this one day I was on the computer and someone messaged me about how I had to be with Stephanie and it was so strange, but I think that it was someone having an affair with Paul and they somehow know me or I know them and they want me with Stephanie so they can be with Paul. I have no problem with the being with Stephanie part of the equation, but it's the fact that some guy would dare cheat on her that bothers me. And she doesn't think Paul would do that to her, but we both know he's an asshole and it's probably something he would do."

"He isn't the best guy, that's for sure," Lance reminds him of something else, "but she's still married."

"I know, but she kind of knows how I feel," Chris admits.

"She does?"

"We were hiking and the view was just and the company was amazing and well, I kind of told her how I felt by almost kissing her and then she can't not know how I feel after that and I want to be with her, we haven't kissed or anything, but she told me that she just needed time and that's why I'm pacing because I don't know what this time thing means," Chris explains. "I mean, does that mean she wants me too?"

"I don't know, I barely even know Stephanie."

"You should, Lance."

"Okay, you are too far gone," Lance chuckles. "Why don't you just go and ask her what she meant by needing some time? Maybe she just needs time to break up with Paul or something?"

"But then what if she was just saying that needed time because she doesn't want to be with me and she was just trying to diffuse the situation."

"Did it look like she wanted to kiss you?"

"Yes, but maybe it was just the moment…Paul suck," Chris tells him, "I mean, I guess he's not horrible to her, but they have nothing in common and I don't know why she's with him, well, okay, I have a theory-"

"Which I'm sure you're going to tell me right now."

"She gets to keep her independence," Chris tells him, not bothering to even listen to what Lance says to him, "and she loves that. She's so independent and she likes to do her own thing, but I guess maybe she doesn't like to be alone or she thought that Paul was the best she could do and boy is she wrong. I could be so much better for her, we love doing things together and she could still have her independence. What kind of guy doesn't want to be around her all the time?"

"Well, you're in love with her, so I think you're viewpoint is a bit skewed."

"I don't care, any guy, hell, any person who gets to know her would want to be with her."

As if she knew what was being said about her, Stephanie knocks on the door and then peeks her head inside, "Hey, Chris, oh, hey, Lance, I didn't really expect you here."

"Some of my students are getting tryouts tonight," Lance explains and she nods as she steps in the room, sending Chris a warm smile towards Chris. "Should I leave?"

"You don't have to," Chris clears his throat, hoping that Stephanie will tell Lance to get the hell out of here because she wants to make out with him. Okay, so that's probably not going to happen, but if it did, he wouldn't object to it.

"No, Lance, you don't have to," Stephanie says, "I just wanted to give you a heads up that we're moving your in-ring promo from the beginning of the show to the top of the second hour."

"Oh," Chris says, feeling a little deflated that she didn't want to talk to him, so he guesses he has to make the first step here. "Actually, Lance, can you leave for a minute, I do want to talk to Stephanie."

"Yeah, sure," Lance nods as he slips out.

Chris smiles at Stephanie and she can't seem to help but smile back because the corners of her lips are twitching as if she's trying not to smile, "Hey."

"Hey," she tells him and he suddenly feels a little self-conscious even though nothing really happened between him and Stephanie. "So what's up?"

"You said you needed time, Steph, it's been pretty much killing me for the past week, what do you need time for? What am I waiting for? Because if I don't know what I'm waiting for then, I just…I would rather you tell me right now before things get weird between us. I will understand if you just want to be friends although it's definitely not what I want, but I think I've made my intent pretty clear here," he rambles and he doesn't notice that she's walking towards him until her index and middle finger are pressed against his lips. He looks down at said fingers when they pull away. He loves that she doesn't get manicures unless she's going on TV; somehow, it's just so _her_.

"Okay, Chris, you need to stop rambling," she tells him and they're very close right now and whatever is palpating between them is heady and strong.

"Sorry," he mumbles as her hand reaches for his and grabs it.

"I need time to figure out my feelings," Stephanie explains to him. "I feel for you, what I feel for you, I'm not sure yet. Paul and I have been together so long that it's like…I don't know anything else and before you tell me that he's horrible for me, we work in our own way, okay, please understand that."

"I understand." He doesn't. He absolutely doesn't get it, but she's talking and he's listening.

"I may feel for you more than I do Paul, I'm just not sure yet."

"How are you not sure?" he asks because how can you not be sure if you like someone more than someone else, isn't that something you just feel? Isn't it something you should just know.

"Because I'm _married_ to Paul, not you," she sighs and grabs the bridge of her nose. "So I'm _supposed_ to feel more for him and I'm struggling here, Chris, okay, so please, just give me the time to think this out. I know you know how you feel, but I'm still trying to work it out. That's what I mean by time."

"I get it," he says, going out on a limb and taking her in his arms. "I'm sorry I'm pressuring you."

"You're not, you're just being wonderful," she mumbles against his chest. "I'll figure it out, Chris."

He hopes she does and he hopes she figures it to be him.


	11. Chapter 11

Some days he expects to wake up and find her next to him.

Maybe he's too optimistic. He's not even sure if this will work. He's not even sure this is even real. It feels real though and if it isn't, it's the longest and most detailed dream of his entire life. He wishes that he could actually call his past self, just to tell him what's going on, just to hear his own voice and convince himself that he's not crazy, that his brain hasn't concocted this entire plan just to bring something back that he wants so desperately.

He's contemplated the fact that he might be injured and in some kind of coma, but even then, he doesn't think it would be like this. Would it be so real? He doesn't think so, so he convinces himself that it's real and that one morning, maybe tomorrow, maybe the day after, that he'll wake up, there will be no grave bearing her name in the cemetery and she will be curled next to him, stretch against him and kiss him good morning.

That's the ideal. He also knows that it might not even end up that way. He's changing the timeline, yes, but there's no way to tell if he's changing the timeline in such a way that would benefit him. He knows there's a possibility that her life may be spared and she might not still end up with him. She could still be with Paul (he hopes not), she could be with someone else, she may even be single. He doesn't care about that right now though, the most important thing to him is that she will be alive. As long as she's alive, he might have a chance.

He finds himself going to her grave everyday now. He knows when Paul visits and he avoids those times, but when he knows it's safe, he goes, just to look at it, see if it's still there. So far, still there. He almost expects to see it disappear before his eyes, first the quote, then the date of her death, then her name and then the grave itself, like the entire thing would just blow away in the wind. Everyday he goes, it's still there, but he has to remain hopeful that things are changing, that things have already changed.

Years before, Chris is impatient. He wants to go to Stephanie and beg her to choose him. He can give her so much better than she's getting. He can give her so much more than Paul can give her. And if Paul is cheating on her, then she can definitely do better than him. He wishes he could find some sort of proof, but the only way he could possibly do that would be to follow Paul around for a while and see if he can catch him in the act. He's not sure he wants to devote time he could be spending with Stephanie to spying on Paul.

He's trying to give her space to think about it, but right now, all he wants is to be near her, ever close to her and it's difficult trying to pry himself away from someone who has quickly become one of his best friends. He decides that he can at least ask around to see if anyone has ever heard anything about Paul. His first idea is to go to Shawn Michaels. He's friends with Shawn, they've gotten along well in the past and he's best friends with Paul and if anyone would know anything, it would be him, so he decides to start there and work his way out.

Though Shawn is retired, he still finds a way to hang around every now and then. Chris is lucky a couple weeks later because Shawn shows up to a show they're having in Texas. He contemplated calling before this, but thought a call out of the blue would be too suspicious. He waits until he sees Shawn having a free moment by himself and saunters over as casually as he can muster and he nods his head towards him and walks over.

"Hey, Chris, what's up?" Shawn says jovially, obviously glad to be there. Chris thinks that even when someone stays retired, they still miss everything about the business and he can tell with Shawn's face that he has missed this, the backstage hustle and bustle and the camaraderie of it all.

"Nothing, much, how's retirement treating you?" Chris asks, striking up a conversation wherein he can slowly lead into all subjects Paul.

"Actually, it's pretty good, can't complain. I get to spend a lot of time with Bec and the kids and that's all I can really hope for. I've actually got this hunting show project I've lined up for the Outdoor channel. Hey, you should come on it sometime."

"I've never been hunting in my life," he laughs, thinking about how bad he would be at something like that. He'd probably end up shooting more trees than he would animals. Not to mention he's a little put-off by the idea of going out and killing animals, but if that's Shawn's thing, more power to him.

"I can teach you, it can be a thing," Shawn jokes.

Chris laughs, "We'll see, so just back hanging out for a night."

"Yeah, we're in Texas, thought I'd see the old gang," Shawn says in that typical Shawn way. It's like Shawn was born to be a cowboy in some forgotten decade and he was just trying to get used to being in the present day. "I've been watching you, you look good out there."

"Thanks, I feel good, I feel like I'm doing some of the best work of my career."

"I can tell, it shows," Shawn nodded.

"So hey, not to make this into an all-personal thing or anything, but I've been hanging out with Stephanie a lot lately, getting to know her better-"

"And you've found out how awesome she is?" Shawn says knowingly, like he was once in the same position Chris was in and he very well could have been. He knows that Shawn must have known Stephanie for years since he's been with the company so long; he might have even known Stephanie when she was a teenager, but he can't imagine Shawn getting to know Stephanie until she married Paul and he assumes that's what Shawn means.

"Yeah, she is, who knew she was keeping that kind of secret," Chris tells him. "She's pretty amazing. I mean, we've gone hiking, we went on this road trip together because she didn't want to be alone. She loves really stupid stuff, but she somehow makes it a blast." Shawn nods and smiles in a way that makes Chris uncomfortable. He feels a little exposed and so he reins it in. "She's just been a really great friend."

"A great friend," Shawn echoes, but his tone is much more playful than Chris's was.

"Yeah, I'd consider her my best friend, yes," Chris says, trying to deflect that look away from him. Shawn could probably read right through him and if Shawn could, it definitely meant that Paul would. He almost didn't want to bring up Paul now, but he knew he had to push forward or lose the opportunity forever.

"Just a friend, huh?"

"There's nothing going on between us if that's what you're implying," Chris tells him. He doesn't really care that people think he and Stephanie are together because it's what he wants, but he doesn't want people to think Stephanie is some kind of slut like her onscreen character was.

"I didn't say anything," Shawn smirks and Chris groans inwardly, "but I think it's pretty clear that you like her and so…you came to ask me about Paul or something?"

"I…wasn't…doing that," Chris says slowly, drawing his syllables out, but he's caught and his face probably shows that he's caught and well, the only thing he can do is admit it, "okay, so I am rooting for information because I _do_ like Stephanie. Here's the thing though. A while ago and actually intermittently since then, I've been getting these instant messages, these e-mails, and these texts that are kind of weird and cryptic."

"What do they say?"

"They tell me that I need to be with Stephanie, that I need to save her or something, I don't really get it," Chris explains. "It's just weird, but it's got me thinking, could Paul be cheating on Stephanie and this is some woman who is trying to get me to steal Stephanie so she can have Paul all to herself?"

"That doesn't sound like Paul to be honest," Shawn says. "I mean, he's not the type."

"But with Stephanie and Joanie…I never really got the whole story on that, but from the way it's been talked about-"

"Blown out of proportion. Yeah, Paul was still with Joanie when he began to be attracted to Stephanie, but he made sure he and Joanie were long done," Shawn recalls, "so he's never really been that kind of guy. It would be weird if he was having an affair. Not to say that it couldn't happen, it's just weird and he's never mentioned anything to me."

Chris nods, that's about what he was expecting. If Paul was cheating, he'd be discreet about it, especially if it was someone within the company. If anyone found out, everyone would soon find out. "Thanks, but like, when you're with them. They just don't seem…compatible."

Shawn laughs, "I think the same thing to be honest with you. I'm not going to lie, I don't see them being very couple-like very often, but it seems to work for them."

"They don't even seem to spend time together." He wants justification for what he thinks. He wants some sort of confirmation for wanting that relationship to end. If he has someone who backs up his opinion, it will make it easier to irrationally hate Paul for having Stephanie. If he has that other person, the irrational hate could maybe turn to rational hate for him.

"No, they don't, but they make it work."

"But she doesn't seem happy."

"Are you sure that you're seeing what is there or are you seeing what you want to see?" Shawn asks. "It's a really fine line, you know. You could be thinking that you see Stephanie unhappy in her marriage, but maybe they make it work."

"I don't know, I just keep thinking that if Stephanie were my wife, I wouldn't want to be away from her. I know she likes her independence, but maybe she just likes it because Paul doesn't like anything she does," he says desperately, wanting to hate Paul.

"I can't tell you what goes on in their relationship," Shawn says, "but Paul isn't a bad guy. Whomever you're talking with, maybe they want Paul and they're using you as a means to an end. You know, I would just go to Paul."

"Go to Paul?" Chris scoffs incredulously. He could not think of a worse idea. "He hates me in case you've never noticed."

"He doesn't hate you, he's intimidated by you and if you tell him I told you that, then I'll have to kill you. He's intimidated by a lot of guys here, trust me, I've heard him, but he uses intimidation to combat that, to make himself look tough. You're just one of the only guys that sees through that."

There was so much more to this than he'd ever known. Paul was intimidated by him? Well, he could understand that; he was the best in the world at what he did (no, he didn't really believe that, but it was nice to think about from time to time). Maybe Paul wasn't a bad guy, but he still couldn't possibly go up to him and talk to him about this, unless he had something on him and could call him out. Right now he just had hearsay and theories.

"Still, to go up to him and say, hey, I think you're cheating on your wife. Stephanie doesn't believe me. She sees the best in him."

"Maybe that's all there is to see though," Shawn shrugs. "Like I said, the guy has been my best friend for years and he's never been that kind of guy and I can't imagine that he would just all of a sudden start now. But that's my personal opinion, you ask any other guy around here and they believe that he married her solely for the power."

"Yeah, that's exactly what they'd say."

"I think they just fit each other's lifestyles," Shawn says.

Chris sighed, "Thanks for talking to me, man, I really appreciate it and if you really could just keep this to yourself, I don't exactly want it getting out that I might have feelings for Stephanie. I just…it's a sensitive thing right now."

"Of course, good seeing you, Chris, seriously, if you want to be on the show, just send me the word."

Chris laughs and shakes his head in amusement, "I will do that, Shawn, okay, later."

"Later, Chris."

Well, that hadn't been as bad as he thought it would be, but he still couldn't just go to up to Paul and accuse him of cheating on his wife. He sat himself down on a trunk and wonders if he can actually talk to Paul about this. The idea of stalking him to see if he's doing anything untowardly towards Stephanie is looking better and better by the second. He almost doesn't notice when her hand slips into his, but her presence always breaks him free of whatever thought was in his mind.

"Hey," she says softly, "what are you doing?"

"Sitting here, thinking about things," he tells her, then looks at her and sighs in contentment because just being around her does that and their clasped hands make him feel even more into the moment. He runs his thumb over her knuckles, hoping he's not being too forward, but she was the one who took his hand so he doesn't feel like he's doing anything more wrong than she had started.

"Like?"

"You," he admits, then feels slightly stupid for it. He doesn't want to pressure her. He knows that she needs time and he doesn't want her to feel like he's pressing her to make a decision, but…he really wants her to make a decision.

"Interesting," she smiles and then leans her chin on his shoulder.

"Not really."

"So, I was wondering something," she says.

"What's that?"

"Can we talk?"


	12. Chapter 12

He follows her as she walks down the hallway. He's pretty sure that she doesn't mean to sway her hips like that, but the fact is that she is swaying them and his eyes are like pendulums, swinging back and forth as he watches her lead him to wherever she wants to talk. If his mind were not occupied by that tantalizing sway, he would figure that she was leading him to her office. Indeed, that is where they go and she doesn't wait for him to open the door for her, instead she opens the door herself and holds it for him.

She closes the door and locks and he stands in the middle of the room awkwardly. "Locking the door?" he says.

"I don't want to be interrupted," she tells him and he nods. She gestures towards the couch and he slowly takes a seat down. He doesn't know what she's going to say and he thinks that's the worst part about it all. If he knew what he was getting into, he might not feel so nervous. If she doesn't want him, he could either steel himself for it or come up with some kind of speech to get her to change her mind. If she wants him, then he could think of some plan to get her away from her husband. But this not knowing is horrible and he doesn't like it and so he sits gingerly and stares down at the ground.

Stephanie comes over and sits next to him and neither one of them speak for a few moments. He looks up at Stephanie and she's scrunching up her nose as she opens her mouth, "I've always likened myself to Jo from _Little Women_."

"Huh?" he says, not understanding what she's saying.

"Well, she was always kind of independent, you know," Stephanie says and she stares at the wall. "Like, she just didn't want to ever feel tied down and she was so free-spirited, kind of had a temper, willing to do her own thing. I guess I just always identified with her. And when she turned down Laurie…God, I'm giving you a literature lesson, well, I guess, I guess she just wanted to be with someone who would let her have the independence."

"Okay," Chris says, still a little confused as to where she's going with this. He doesn't understand why a book has anything to do with their current situation.

"Anyways, I guess I just always saw marriage as this thing that ties a person down," she explains. "I just saw it as this…I mean, you know how unstable my parents' marriage was for a while there, I know you did. I guess that I just didn't want to give up who I was."

"Stephanie-"

"Please let me finish, Chris," she cuts him off. "I just want to say what I have to get out and then we can really talk because I know you're dying to say things to me and I'm dying to hear what you have to say, but I have to get what I need to get out first."

He laughs, she's just too sweet when she's rambling and she gives him a half smile. "I'm sorry, Steph, please, continue."

"Thank you," she continues with what she wants to say. "I guess that since I wanted independence…wait, let me rephrase that. I didn't want to necessarily be _alone_, you know. I didn't want to be some old spinster woman who had no husband or children and who basically just died alone and friendless. Nobody wants that. But on the other hand, I didn't want to give up everything that I loved and I think that's why Paul seemed so perfect for me. We had separate interests and he never really objected to what I wanted to do, he never said that I couldn't do something. He never really said anything. He's not a bad guy, I love him for letting me be who I want to be. I love that independence."

"I think I understand what you're saying," Chris nods his head slowly as it sinks in. Paul was something of a convenience for Stephanie. He was someone who was there in the times she needed him, but he was also out of the picture when she wanted to be alone. "You love him because he doesn't try to change you?"

"Yeah, he never has. He's always accepted me just how I am and I've always appreciated that about him," she says. "I guess…I guess it's just hard to think about things being different because I _like_ the way things are now. But then…then you come along and you want to be friends with me and everything that we have in common and you like doing the things that I like to do and it's like, I still feel like I have independence, even when I'm with you."

"I don't understand what you're trying to say here, Stephanie," he says and he is confused. He doesn't know if this is Stephanie's admission of feelings for him or if she's trying to say that the situation with Paul is so perfect for her that despite anything she might feel for Chris, she doesn't want things to change either.

"I'm just saying that this is strange for me. I like what I have with you, but then I'm so confused because I don't know if what I like is that we're friends so that when I get to see you, it's a treat and if that's the case, if I were to…be with you, in all senses of the word, would I feel the same way or would I feel like I was being stifled."

"Don't you think that's a chance you have to take?"

"I don't know if I want to try."

"But why not?" And now he knows that it's time to fight. Now he knows that the point of this conversation for him, the goal for him is to fight whatever is stopping her right now. "You have to take chances sometimes, Stephanie. You can't just be content with something because you don't want to take a chance on something that can be better and if it's independence that you need, I'm more than willing to give it to you, but don't think your life would be better if you _wanted_ to spend time with your significant other once in a while."

"I do spend time with Paul and I do love him, please don't misconstrue what I'm saying," she lets him know.

"I don't doubt that you do, but I don't think that you're _in_ love with him."

"Don't pull the love/in love conversation with me, please," Stephanie sighs like she's heard this a million times before. "I get that there's some sort of cosmic difference, but I don't need to hear that spiel right now or ever really. All I need-"

"All you need is to give me a chance," he's firm when he says this. "Stephanie, I'm fighting for you, I'm fighting for you to give me a chance. I just want a chance because I think you are such an amazing person. I never set out to fall for you, I just wanted to be your friend, but this wasn't my intention."

"I get that," she sighs. Then she closes her eyes and Chris reaches for her hand, taking it in his and he notices the smile that comes over his face. She opens her eyes to stare at him and he doesn't want to be presumptuous, but he can feel the tide turning in his favor and it really should. She shouldn't have to settle.

"You know, you don't have to give up who you are to be with someone else," he tells her gently. "I would never ask nor would I ever expect you to change for me. I don't like people who get me to change. But the thing is, why would I ever want you to change? It wasn't some mousy follower that I fell for, it was this bold, independent woman that I fell for and you are everything that I want and that's all I can really say here to you."

"I get that," she seems torn, but he wants to pull her towards him.

"Give me the chance, Steph?"

"I still…"

"No, you don't need to think about it, do you? You know what you want and you know that wanting it isn't necessarily the safest thing. Go for the unsafe option, Stephanie."

She wants to, he needs her to and she looks off, like she didn't expect the conversation to go in this direction. He wonders if she wanted him to somehow talk her out of it or to say something that would make it impossible for them to ever be together, but there's nothing stopping them. Everything they could ever have is before them and she knows it. He squeezes her hand tightly, letting him know that _he's_ there. He's the one who will fight for her while Paul is so content to just let her leave and do her own thing. Chris wants to do her thing with her.

"There's things I need to do," she finally says. "I can't say that I can do everything right now, okay?"

"Okay, I understand," and he does, she's married, they can't just fall into each other's arms, there's protocol here. If they're going to be together, he refuses to be her dirty, little secret or the other party to adultery. If he's going to be with Stephanie McMahon, that's all there's going to be, full-stop, but he knows that it's impossible for it to be that easy. She has a husband and however uninvolved he is in her life, he's still _in _her life and he can be taken care of, but it's not going to be that simple. "Do you think Paul would…object?"

"To a divorce?" she asks redundantly, then thinks for a moment before shaking her head. "I don't think he will. Paul has his own life and while we're friends, I don't think he would have too much objection to it. We signed a pre-nup of course so there's that…am I really thinking about getting a divorce."

"I think so."

She gives something of a small laugh, seemingly out of disbelief. "I can't believe I'm contemplating giving everything up for a _man_."

"Well, I like to think I'm a pretty worthy man, if I do say so myself."

"And I don't have to answer to you?"

"Of course you don't, what do you think I'm going to be, your lord and master, no way. I just want to be able to kiss you and spend time with you, that's really all I want, I mean, I do want more, but…you know what I mean."

"I think I do," she laughs for real this time and she hugs him. "You're special, Chris, and someday I hope to show you just how special you are to me. I'm not ready to say those words because I'm not in tune with those words, but they will come, I can feel them."

Chris, in the distant future can feel something warming inside of him. He knows that the Chris of the past has time, but he hopes it's enough time. He can feel like everything is changing because now…now when he thinks of Stephanie, there's something different than the love he used to feel for her. There's something deeper inside of him, some deeper feeling that makes him take pause and have to sit down. Now, when he thinks of Stephanie, it doesn't feel so unrequited. When he used to think of her, it was always in the terms of how he hated that she never knew how much he felt for her.

There was always a sense of regret for never taking that chance and telling her everything she ever meant to him. He carried that around, but now there's something that has changed. The regret has evaporated and he doesn't feel it pressing into his chest so hard anymore. If the regret is gone, he must…yes, he must have told her so at least now she knows. Even if she remains dead for all eternity, she must know. And the feeling that he feels inside of him, he's starting to identify it. Yes, it starts to come to him now.

She felt it too and he knows.


	13. Chapter 13

A/N: Thanks for reading and reviewing, hope you enjoy. :)

* * *

He wants to be with her now. He wants to wake up and see her blue-gray eyes staring back at him with some emotion he can't even comprehend swirling in them. He wants her hand to run up his side and laugh at his face. He wants someone to talk to when he goes to sleep at night, a voice that is the last thing he hears when he goes to bed and the first one he hears when he wakes up. He doesn't think this is too much of a request, but then, it is, it's much too much a request when the woman you want it with is dead…still dead.

Every morning he wakes up and he thinks for a moment that maybe she'll be there, lying there looking at him, but every morning is a false hope because he still doesn't see her and he wonders what is taking himself so long. He must know by now that he loves Stephanie. He _must_. He has memories and they can't be skewed by time so much that he doesn't know what he felt back then. The memories he previous did not have suffuse him with a warmth, but it doesn't linger when he remembers that she is still buried in the ground, alone, dark, and without life.

He grabs his phone from the nightstand next to him and he scrolls down to a number he'd given up almost a year ago when some rather industrious fans had managed to discover the number and call him at all hours of the day to tell him how wonderful he was. Still, maybe, just maybe this will work again and he can communicate directly to his former self and see how the hell it's going because he's getting impatient. He knows he shouldn't get impatient because this might not even work. There's no guarantee that he will be able to get Stephanie back, but he has to hope that it does work out. He's only gifted the opportunity, but he has to grab that opportunity and shake it until it gives him what he needs.

_Are you with her yet?_

Chris grabs his phone and looks at the message. Again, the date is horribly off and he wonders if his phone is glitchy. He rolls his eyes as he read the message because he can't believe whoever this is, is bothering him again. Can't they get a life? He wishes they would because it's getting annoying at this point.

"What's with the face?" Stephanie asks as she walks into his hotel room using the keycard he'd given her. Chris quickly deletes the message because he doesn't want her to see it. The last thing he wants her to do is see this and start to think he has some weird ulterior motive for being with her. He really just wants to be with her to be with her. He's worked too hard to get where he is with her to screw it up now.

"Don't you ever knock?" he asks playfully, "I could have been changing you know."

"You haven't got anything I've never seen before," she teases him and he scoffs and she gives him a haughty look and the only thing he wants to do is pull her to him and kiss her, but he can't do that just yet, not just yet, unless she's come here to tell him something and God he hopes that's the case. "What, it's true!"

"Oh, I've got something you've never seen before," he says lecherously and she giggles and flops down onto the couch beside him. "Who said you could sit with me?"

"I did," she tells him and then leans her chin on his shoulder so he can feel her breath blowing against his neck and it's oh so distracting, but in the absolute best way possible. He's sure that if he closes his eyes, he'll get lost in the sensation of it and potentially embarrass himself so he fights to keep his eyes open. "So what was with the face? Did someone send you a picture of their ass or something because you definitely had that annoyed look on your face."

"You know my annoyed look?" he asks her, turning his head just slightly so he can give her a sidelong glance.

"You wear it most of the time, so yes, I think I know your annoyed face," she grins at him. He doesn't know how he knows she's grinning at him, maybe it's the slight movement of her chin against his shoulder or maybe he can just hear it in her voice, but he knows it's there and he loves when he puts it on her face. "So what is it? A ribbing, an annoying ex-girlfriend, your dad or step-mom?"

"No, none of that, it's just some annoying person who keeps texting me. I'm not sure who they are, but it's just an annoying person and it's no big deal," he tells her, not wanting to let her know that he thinks Paul is really cheating on her and that he suspects whoever is behind these texts and e-mails is the person he's cheating with. He doesn't want to tell her because despite it all, he doesn't want to break her heart.

"Well, what did this one say?"

"Nothing of importance," he shrugs casually, glad the he'd had the foresight to delete it upon her entering his room.

"Well, let me see your phone for a second," she tells him, grabbing the phone before he even has a chance to get it out of her grasp. Chris tries to make a grab for it, but she pulls it away from him and then leans away so that when he tries to lean her body against her, she's already away from him.

"What are you doing?" he asks her like she's crazy and she laughs and body-blocks him so he can't get at her. When he lunges, she stands up and faces him so that if he tries to make a move on her, she can duck out of the way. She can even run into the bathroom if the case may be.

"You'll see," she teases and then she looks through his phone.

"I deleted the message," Chris tells her.

"The number is still here though," Stephanie says, taunting him with the phone. "Let's give this person a piece of our mind, shall we?"

"Stephanie, are you crazy, we don't even know who that is, it could be some crazy stalker person who is trying to lure me away," he says, though part of him is joking, the other part is not joking. What if the person on the other end answers and it's some woman and Stephanie wonders…well, no, she didn't see the original text so it's not like she could make that connection.

"Well then I'll tell them off," Stephanie hit the button and then put it up to her ear, making his eyes widen at her and she just stuck her tongue out at him. "It's ringing."

"Stephanie…" He makes no real attempt to stop her though and he's not quite sure why, but he's really curious to see what she says.

"Oh no, voicemail, the generic kind where they don't even say their name," Stephanie rolls her eyes like this is some great offense. "Okay, here we go…hello, whoever this is, you're bugging my best friend over here and you need to get a life and stop sending him texts and whatever else you may be sending him because you are cutting into very precious, very, very precious time that I'm spending with him so you should be horribly disappointed in yourself and if you know what's good for you, you won't mess with either one of us again. Consider this your final warning…and this is Stephanie McMahon if you didn't know."

Chris laughs at her and shakes his head, "I can't believe you just did that."

"If they bother you again, you just tell me," she tries to sound tough, pointing to herself and then flexing her muscles. "I'll take care of them."

"Would you come here?" he asks, opening up his arms and she comes over and sits down to hug him. He bears hugs her and she laughs and again, he wants to kiss her. "So we haven't yet established why the hell you just barged into my room like you owned the joint."

"You know, I probably could buy this hotel," she muses jokingly. "I'm sure I could and then I _would_ own the joint."

"Very funny, I'm not sure it'd be a great investment, so really, what brings you here, not that I'm not happy to see you, of course, you know I'm always happy to see you." His voice takes on a more serious tone so she knows that he always wants to see her. A little of the awkwardness from their last serious conversation has worn off and they're feeling more comfortable around each other, but technically, she's still married and so he can't be the way he wants to really be with her, but he wants her to know that it's what he wants to happen and soon.

"I'm happy to see you too," she says and her voice softens into this lovely girlish tone that he just loves so much he feels almost numb with happiness when he hears it. "I wanted to come talk to you."

"About?" He can't help that his nerves are always getting the best of him where she's concerned. He's never felt this way about a woman, where he wants to hang on her every word and it's odd to feel so much for one person, but it's here and he kind of likes it and wouldn't change it for the world.

"Me and Paul," Stephanie says and her mouth twists and he knows it's because she doesn't like to talk about things like this but it's necessary if they're ever going to be together.

"Okay," he says, waiting for her to talk. He doesn't want to push her to talk about until she's ready and so he sits there as she mulls over her words.

"I'm going to talk with him…tonight. I asked him out to dinner, I mean, not a date, but I asked if we could go out to dinner tonight and talk. I think he knows what's up."

"What did he say?" Chris asks.

"He didn't really say anything, just agreed," Stephanie shrugs. "I don't think he's…angry about it. Like I said, we've been living pretty much separate lives and I know he loves me and I love him, but you're right, if I can't enjoy being with him totally, I probably shouldn't be with him at all."

"I don't want to make things hard for you, you know," he tells her because he wants her to understand that he doesn't want to force her to be with him.

"No, no, don't apologize or try to justify it. Feelings are…complicated, they always are and they always will be," she responds, "and I don't want to trade the feelings I have for you. I wouldn't want to trade them even if I could. I like the way I feel around you and I want to be _with_ you, it's just you have to do hard things in your life."

"Lord knows that's true."

"I just wanted to come over here and I was wondering if I could bring my things in here. I figured that since I'm leaving Paul…or separating, I don't really know the terminology that I should do the gracious thing and let him have the hotel room and I'm not sure what my emotional status is going to be following dinner and…"

"I'll be here for you," Chris interrupts her, "you don't have to worry, you can bring your things up now if you want, you can get ready here, are you meeting him at the restaurant?"

"Yeah, he's out with Shawn right now," Stephanie said, "it's a casual place, I thought a fancy place would be a weird choice to announce you're leaving your husband. Thank you so much."

"You don't have to thank me," he hugs her, "you know how I feel about you, Stephanie, that doesn't require thanking, just so you know."

"Still, after all this, with all my nerves and everything…I'm still kind of excited, is that weird? I just, I've never been with someone who has really gotten me and to think that I could actually have that, that I'm almost there, it's kind of scary and exciting all at the same time."

"I'm excited too," he assures her, "believe me, I'm excited too."

In the distant future, Chris pulls into the parking space at the gym. He has a boxing class in a few minutes and he needs it. He wants to get all the aggression out, all the anger at the situation out. The other Chris never answered him and it's a little frustrating, but he knows himself and knows that he doesn't like to be messed with so he can understand the hesitance. Before he gets out, he decides to check his phone one last time and sees that he has a new voicemail. He wonders what he's going to say to himself. He can picture himself telling himself off and the thought is kind of funny and crazy at the same time. He brings the phone to his ear to hear his new voicemail and as he listens, his heart drops into the vicinity of his stomach. Her voice stops him and he nearly drops the phone because his hand starts shaking so hard that he can barely hold it up. It's the first time he's heard her voice in something other than old videos in such a long time. His eyes start to tear up and he feels them fall a moment later.

He's never heard anything so beautiful.


	14. Chapter 14

A/N: Thanks for all the reviews and everyone who is reading this story. I hope that you'll continue to enjoy it and hope that you'll review. Thanks. :)

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He listens to the message at least three times before he even starts his car. He can't help himself really; it's like his brain is on autopilot and it keeps pressing the replay button because he wants to hear it again, analyze every little word and sound in her voice. She sounds happy, so happy and he wants to remember the moment when she would have taken his phone and left the message. He tries to imagine her smile and her laugh as she maybe playfully grabbed the phone out of his hands.

There's no memory of it though, which means it was such an insignificant moment in their history together that he's forgotten it. It has slipped from his brain like water off a slick surface. Her voice warms him though, it caresses his cheek and makes him close his eyes before he turns the key of his engine. In a little slice of time and space, she is alive and happy and smiling and laughing and threatening anyone who bugs him. She's not just some headstone in a graveyard, but a person again. He wishes he could bring this to everyone who misses her, but he can't explain how he has it, why he never shared it before.

He understands now that her family sees him as one of her best friends. There was a phone call a few days ago, a simple one, just Linda checking up on him, saying she was thinking about him when she came across a picture of Stephanie and him on the beach somewhere, a picture that had somehow found its way into Linda's periphery. Apparently she's wanted to check up on him for a while now and just found the time to do so. They talk a little, it's stilted because they both miss Stephanie and she's there between them, even if they can't see her.

So this message, it's everything. It means everything to him in that moment and even if he can't remember when she said it and how she looked while telling him off, somewhere in the far reaches of his mind, the memory is buried, nestled safe and deep and bound to be replaced by more prominent memories or so he hopes because still there lingers her death and the lonely days afterwards.

In the distant past, Chris sits nervously in his hotel room. Stephanie left a couple hours ago and now he's sitting in his hotel room waiting for her to return. His nerves are on end, frayed really, and he finds that he can't sit still. He keeps standing up and pacing a little before sitting back down and staring at the wall. He tries to turn on the TV, but he can't concentrate on anything on it so he turns it off again. His eyes keep flitting to her belongings, sitting just inside the doorway to the bedroom, like a little piece of her left behind. It's an anchor as well, an anchor telling him that she will be back. She can't go three days wearing the same underwear so of course she's going to be back.

He just doesn't know when and when he keeps staring at the door, willing it to open, it never does. It's getting late and he wonders if somehow Paul convinced her to give him a chance to be a real couple with her. Maybe they never got that chance. Maybe Stephanie has been pushing him gently away from the beginning and sitting down in front of him remembers that things don't have to be bad, that they can, in fact, be pretty good if she gives them a try.

He doesn't realize the lights outside going dim until the room becomes a hazy kind of dark, where the sun is still out, but just barely and everything around you takes on the fuzzy edge of night. He turns on a light finally and just as his fingers click against the knob, there's a knock on his door, not timid or persistent, but succinct and he's rushing towards it and pulling open the door. She's on the other side and she gives him a lopsided grin that's one part sadness and two parts relief. He's glad the relief is there because it probably means that the dinner didn't go so badly.

"Come in here," he said, taking her by the upper arm and pulling her inside the room. "I've been worried about you."

"You didn't have to," she says, but she must know that even if she says that, it won't change the fact that he's worried about her and will continue to worry about her in the future.

"Of course I was going to," he tells her and he means it. "I haven't been able to concentrate on anything, I've probably worn a track in the carpet." He looks down at the ground and points at what amounts to nothing, "See, right there, a track in the carpet."

She laughs and he's glad to hear it, "You did not. Have you eaten?"

"I couldn't eat," he shakes his head, "not when you were out there potentially being upset and I just kept waiting for you and food has been the last thing on my mind if we're being honest."

"Oh Chris," she sighs, "come on, let's get you something to eat and then we can talk, okay?"

"Why don't we just talk now and afterwards I can eat," he reasons with her. "I'm not entirely sure I could even choke anything down at this point. I want to know what happened and if you're okay and what's going to happen now. I'm a little on edge here if you haven't noticed."

"That obvious wear in the carpet tells the tale," Stephanie giggles and then hugs him, "okay, if you insist on talking first, but after we talk, then you eat?"

"I may, depending on how the talk goes," he says as he grabs her hand and pulls her to the couch. "So how did it go? How did Paul take it? Was he angry with you? If he was, I can handle him."

"Okay, that's a lot right there and you're not giving me time to answer any of those questions," Stephanie pats his hand and then squeezes it with her other hand. "He was okay with it, as okay with it as someone who was just told that their wife was leaving them of course."

"How could he be okay with it?" he wonders. He doesn't understand how anyone could want to be away from this woman. He wants to spend every moment of every day with her and can't imagine other people not wanting the same thing. She's incredible and she lights up every room she's in as far as he's concerned.

"Well, I wouldn't say he was necessarily _fine_," Stephanie explains, "but he's been feeling distant from me as well and it's not the normal distant where if we just spend more time together, it will get better. He's been pulling away from me because we have nothing in common. So while I was bitching over the fact that I didn't have anything in common with him, he was feeling the same way."

"So that's it then?"

"Well, it's not it as in we can just dissolve everything overnight," she laughs, "but we are going to file joint divorce papers, cite irreconcilable differences and get out of this as cleanly as possible. I have to start looking for some divorce attorneys, but Paul has said he doesn't want this to be any harder than it has to be so I don't think it's going to be a knock-out, drag-down fight to the death over assets and what not. We have the pre-nup in position and we're okay with how things are going to proceed."

"He didn't even seem sad?" Chris marvels.

"He was sad, I'm sad too, but this has been a long time coming, we just kind of ignored it because it's always easier to ignore things, isn't it?" she shrugs and she sighs and he recognizes the sadness in that sigh so he takes her in his arms and hugs her.

"I'm sorry you have to go through this."

"I kind of brought this on myself though, didn't I?" Stephanie mumbles into his shirt. "I'm the one that chose to marry him. It falls on me that I made the choices for myself. Nobody coerced me into marrying him. He didn't drug me and take me to Vegas."

He chuckles softly, inhaling her scent. "We all make choices sometimes that don't turn out the right way, but aren't you glad you took the chance in the first place? It might not have turned out the way you wanted it to turn out, but you won't go through life with any regrets."

"You're so wise," she teases as she pulls away and looks him in the face, "and this way, Paul can go out and find someone who suits him better. I know he wants a traditional type of wife, the kind that is happy to stay home and cook for him and just let her job be loving him and that was never me. I could never really fit into that mold."

"There's nothing wrong with that and he's free to find someone that he can love and so are you," he tells her, leaning his forehead against hers. "You deserve every happiness in the world. You're incredible, Steph. You are singly the most interesting person I have ever met. Every person in your life is lucky they know you."

"Thank you," she says, "I just need to hear all of this so that I don't suddenly fall over into a sobbing mess."

"I don't think you could ever be a sobbing mess," he shakes his head. "You're not a person who just falls apart into a mess. Never you."

"Stop saying such sweet things," she pushes at his chest. "You're too sweet and everything and I'm here just acting like…I don't even know."

"Your marriage just ended," he reminds her. "You can feel any way you want to feel. I'm not going to suddenly tell you that you need to move on. You're upset, that's fine, that's why you came here with me tonight and that's why I'm here with you."

"You're amazing," she tells him softly, her voice barely above a whisper. She reaches forward and brushes some of his hair away from his face. "Your hair is getting longer, you need to get it cut."

"I know, I just haven't had enough time to do it, what with you dragging me everywhere around the country," Chris jokes with her. "It's getting shaggy again."

"Do you ever think you would want to grow it out like you had it?" she asks as she continues to brush her fingers through his hair. He tries not to concentrate on how good it feels, but the way her fingers touch his scalp seems to make every hair stand up to attention.

"No, I don't think so. I like my hair now, it's easier to manage and I think I look better. I'm not getting any younger, you know so I don't want to be that guy in his 50's who has long hair," Chris answers.

"I thought you were cute with it," she confesses, "but I like how it is now."

"I'm glad."

"I like you, Chris."

"I like you too," he tells her, not knowing if she's talking about liking him as a friend or if she's talking about him as something potentially more than a friend. The way she's leaning into him gives him a better indication of what she's feeling though.

Her lips press against his tentatively, almost as if she's scared he might pull away, but there's no chance he's going anywhere. The entire hotel could suddenly burst into flames and he would not move a single inch. Her lips are firm as they press forward and his surprise wears off and he's kissing her back. He tries to contain his passion for this woman, but he has a hard time restraining himself. He desperately wants to bend her back over the couch, but she just separated from her husband and this could all be because of that and he can't discount that.

He pulls away and takes a breath before smiling. "Okay, that was something, but Stephanie, I don't want you to rush into this. You just left Paul and I know that has to be hard."

She shakes her head, "I know what I'm doing. I've been feeling this way for so long, but I didn't want to say anything while still married. I just want to be with you and I don't care anymore, you know. I just don't want to care what I feel anymore, I just want to feel it."

"I like you too, I like you so much," he laughs because this is absurdly good and he wants her, "but we should maybe take this slow, don't you think?"

"Yes, I definitely think we should take this slow. I don't want to rub it in Paul's face that I'm already with someone. I respect him far too much to do something like that to him. I want him to be able to get over it in his own time without me parading my new boyfriend in his face. Plus, it makes us look like cheaters, which we aren't."

"Boyfriend?" is all he picks up on when she talks and he grins at her. "Did you just call me your boyfriend?"

"I suppose I did," she acts coy, like she didn't mean to say it, but he thinks she did so he initiates their second official kiss and doesn't regret a moment of it.

Chris is jolted with the memory. One moment he's listening to the message on his phone and suddenly, his brain sees himself kissing Stephanie and her kissing him back and this does not feel like his imagination conjuring up fantasies that will forever be unmet. This is a memory, he can still feel the way her lips felt on his and the way her hands stroke his upper arm and the soft, mewling-like sounds from her occupied mouth. It hits him like a ton of bricks. Stephanie kissed him, he kissed her. They were together, she wanted to be together.

So where is she?


	15. Chapter 15

When he walks into the arena for the next show, there's immediately something different in the air. He can't quite put his finger on it, but there's something different. The air is different and his immediate thought is Stephanie is here. He wants to find out if she is, but if she's still dead then it will seem crazy of him to ask about her. So what can he do? Should he look for her, but what does he say if someone asks what he's doing? Oh, I'm just looking for someone who may or may not be dead? That doesn't sound right so he simply goes to his locker room to dump off his stuff.

There's no law against just walking around and when he does, he can't help but look different places and maybe see what's going on in these different places and he can't help if he hopes he'll see that brown hair and hear that laugh that he misses so much. His memory is a fog right now, like there's a crinkle to it, like paper. He remembers kissing her, he remembers that, but beyond that, everything gets hazy. Sometimes his brain sees them together, having fun, but he can't tell if they're memories or dreams and then he sees what has been his reality these last couple years, missing her, trying to fill the void she left behind.

"Yo, hey, Chris!"

Chris looks up ahead and he's startled by what he sees. Paul is walking down the hallway and he has his arm around a blonde he's never seen in his life. Paul looks chummy with her though and there's none of that awkwardness of a new relationship. He wracks his brain trying to figure out this girl's name, but he keeps drawing blanks, probably because his mind is trying to wrap around the fact that Paul is here with a woman.

A few days ago, he'd just visited Paul and he'd been devastated, still pining over Stephanie and now he was here with this woman and Chris was flabbergasted at the change. Then it dawned on him. If Stephanie left Paul to be with him, that meant Paul was free to date anyone he wanted. This girl must be his girlfriend and Paul probably didn't pine over Stephanie like he did when they were married. Sure, he was probably sad, but they were broken up, he didn't lose his wife, just his ex-wife. But Paul had been in the car. If Paul was in the car and Stephanie was in the car with him, shouldn't…

His biggest fear starts to creep up inside of him again. What if he can't save her? What if the one thing he wants to change is something he can't possibly change at all? Maybe she was destined to die and no matter what he does, it will happen, somehow, somewhere. He starts to think about whether or not she was even in a car accident. Maybe no matter where she was that day, death found her. He hopes it's not the case, but if Paul is here with someone else, why isn't she? Where could she be if not here?

"Chris, man, you okay?" Paul breaks him from his thoughts and he stares at the other man. "We lost you there for a second."

"Are you thinking about Stephanie?" the blonde asks him, pressing her hand to his arm in sympathy. She does it with such familiarity this girl must know who he is and he has no idea who she is…or does he? Should he?

"Uh, yeah, sorry," he apologizes. "Sometimes she gets on my mind."

She must still be dead. The way this woman is looking at him, she must still be gone. There go his plans for the evening. But if she died still, there must be some other reason she died. He now has a new mission in finding out just how she died now. Chris realizes he's been lost in his thoughts again and he shakes himself from them as he looks into the two faces regarding him with pity.

"I understand," the blonde tells him, glancing up at Paul and kissing his cheek. "I know Paul does all the time too."

"Kaylie," he says, embarrassed, but she doesn't seem to notice, not really.

"It's okay to feel sad," Kaylie tells him, "for both of you, I know how much both of you cared for her."

"Hey, can you give me a minute with Chris?" Paul asks his girlfriend. She nods and waves to Chris before leaving. He gives her a half-hearted wave before he turns to Paul, wondering what he could possibly want to tell him. Chris's heart is sinking by the moment because it seems to be getting clearer and clearer that no matter what he does, Stephanie will not be coming back. "How are you?"

"I'm okay."

"Are you sure because I know that look, I've worn that look before and you don't seem too fine."

"I'll be fine," Chris snaps at him. He's running out of patience and the last thing he needs is for Paul to be the voice of reason. He just wants to find out what happened with Stephanie, crawl into a hole, and then die there. That's all he wants because it seems like that may be the only thing that will get him Stephanie.

"Look, man, you don't think I don't have days where I don't want to get out of bed. You try being the guy who was in the car with her," Paul scoffs and Chris turns sharply to look at him. The exact same thing happened, but how, how if they broke up, if Stephanie left Paul for him? "I have to live with that everyday. I had to be the guy who offered her a lift because she forgot to tell _you_ to leave her the rental keys. You don't think that eats at me?"

"I'm sorry," Chris says and there's still hope. The hope is blossoming in his chest. He needs to tell his past self, he needs to use this information to help Stephanie. He needs to remind Chris, everyday if he has to, that Stephanie has to be left those keys.

"Are you still with me, man?" Paul asks, noting that Chris seems lost in thought again.

"Yes, I'm fine, sorry," Chris tells him, "I really am, I know you have to deal with it, man, I'm just having a bad day, but I'll get over it, I promise."

"Okay, well, if you need to talk…"

"Yeah, I know where to find you."

Chris looks over at Stephanie and smiles. He can't help it, she's here and she's with him and she's holding his hand and he loves that she's holding his hand and he never wants to let go, but he knows he must at some point. "I can't believe we're actually out on a date," Chris says, his voice giddy with excitement. "I can't believe I'm out on a date with you."

"You sound like this is the first date you've ever been on," Stephanie jokes, but then, to show him, she's kidding, she leans up and kisses him on the cheek. "I think it's cute though, so you're very lucky."

"I am," he tells her. "I don't like the whole secret part of it, but I do like the going out with you part of it."

Stephanie shakes her head, "It's not forever, it's just for a little while, just until everything is finalized or close to being finalized. I want to make sure Paul and I get everything out of the way first before the dirt sheets have their field day."

"They're going to love this, aren't they?" he jokes.

"Yes, they are, which is why I want to make sure my divorce it finalized or close to it until we reveal what we're doing here. I like you a lot, and I don't want people to think I was cheating on Paul or with you. I don't want our names drug through the mud," she tells him. He can't help but love her mind. There's something so calculated but good about her mind and he loves that about her.

"Until then, I can handle just hanging out with you in public, but kissing you in private," he whispers to her, "if I do, in fact, get to kiss you in private."

"I see no problem with that," she tells him as they walk into the restaurant. The hostess shows them to their table and Chris pulls her chair out for her, to which she looks of gratefully. He laughs at her look and then sits down himself.

"I like being with you," Chris tells her, just to tell her, just so she knows he's so happy they have a chance. She could have never given him a chance, but the fact she is makes him so happy he can barely contain his emotions in public.

"I like being with you too," Stephanie grins at him before looking at her menu, peeking up at him over it every few minutes, like he's going to disappear. He doesn't though and he does the same with her until they're looking at each other and laughing. "I'm sorry, I suck at this dating thing."

"What? Dating? No, this is just two friends hanging out," he reminds her with a wink and she scrunches up her face so she's not laughing, but then a few giggles escape and she nods. "There's no reason to be nervous or under pressure, we've done this a million times before, there's nothing different now."

There's something in his words that calms her down. He can tell because her shoulder slump a little bit and maybe she realizes it's true. They're still Chris and Stephanie and their fun times don't have to end because they added kissing and touching to the mix. They're them and they like being with each other. He wants it all to be different for her. He wants this relationship to be everything her relationship with Paul wasn't. He wants to show her what a real relationship could be and he hopes she'll allow him to do so.

His phone buzzes in his pocket and he pulls out as Stephanie says, "Taking other calls while you're out with me, not making a good impression."

"It's just a text, not a call," he teases her and he looks down at it, clicking on his phone to open it and read the message.

_Keep her close, don't let her out of your sight. You can't lose her._

Chris frowns and reads it again before looking up at Stephanie with confusion. He doesn't understand the words written to him and he doesn't exactly like what it says either. Keeping Stephanie close and not letting her out of his sight? It sounds like a threat to him and he doesn't like it. Then losing her? What is that supposed to imply?

"Chris, what is it?" Stephanie asks. "You look kind of ill."

"It's nothing."

"Bad news?" she wonders.

"No, nothing like that, just wish someone wouldn't text me when I'm out with you."

"A girl?"

"No, nothing like that, you're the only girl I see," Chris winks at her. "Just annoying friends is all, always thinking I have time for them."

He quickly composes a message, _If you are thinking about hurting Stephanie, I will kill you, whoever you are._

That should do for now. He goes to set his phone down when it buzzes again. "Tell whoever it is to leave you alone and that you're out with a girl who gets very angry with nosy friends who butt into everything."

"I will tell them that," he promises as he looks at his phone again.

_Nobody wants to hurt her, just…take care of her…please…_

"You look annoyed now," Stephanie says, "do you want me to text them back and be very angry and mean like I was with the phone message?"

"No, no, I can handle this." He clicks another message, hoping this will get the person to leave him alone.

_Go away, don't text me again, Stephanie is not your concern, go away!_

Chris in the future receives the message, but he will not heed it.

He needs to make sure she stays alive.


	16. Chapter 16

A/N: Thanks for the reviews! I really like this chapter, so I hope you do as well, and if you want to drop me a review, I'd really appreciate it! :D

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He has to adjust to his new reality.

After going so long thinking that Paul shared in his grief, seeing Paul happy with another woman is something of a strange reality. He watches Paul and his girlfriend as they laugh and smile with each other, and he finds himself jealous that Paul is over it, but then, there really isn't anything for Paul to get over, not like there was before. Chris knows if he goes to Paul's house, it will not be the same, Stephanie's knick knacks will not be where they last sat, no, they will not be, he knows this.

He knows this because they have found their way into his house. Everyday is a new discovery. He walks downstairs, and he doesn't know what he's going to find. One morning, he walks into his garage to get to his car and sees a bike hanging there, clearly not his own, with a helmet hanging haphazardly from a hook next to it. The helmet is pink with the word "Princess" embossed on it, and it makes his heart clench.

It isn't until the third day that it really occurs to him that Stephanie didn't just have her things here randomly. She was living with him, or at least she appears to be. He closes his eyes and tries to remember, but things are so hazy, as if the memories are forming themselves and they need time to formulate and coagulate inside of his brain, forming masses of memories that can't be stolen from him. He feels like an amnesiac, with memories coming back in bits and pieces and he's trying his damnedest to put them in the right order, like a puzzle of life that he so desperately wants to finish so he can see the entire picture.

He sees her in his bed, he sees her there and he wants more, craves it, because if she's never coming back, these things will be the only thing he has left to cling to when it's all over. Time is winding down, and he will try to make sure nothing happens to her, but he can't make promises, not even to himself. He has to try his best, but unless he can physically go back, he has to just trust that his past self will know to protect her, will somehow change the past. He's already doing it, he just has to keep on the right track.

Stephanie wakes up in the past, her eyes adjusting to the light and she glances over at the other side of the bed. She laughs, the lilt husky with sleep, and turns her head so she's staring at the ceiling. "You are creepy."

Chris laughs, free and unburdened with her death, "What! You can't just wake up and immediately call me creepy."

"I wake up and you're staring at me, of course I can," Stephanie laughs at him, covering her eyes with her left hand as if trying to block out the sun altogether. "That, my friend, is absolutely creepy."

"It's not creepy, I was just admiring the only time of the day where you look completely innocent."

"So what are you saying? I'm _so_ evil that when I sleep is the only time I'm not thinking of wicked plans?" she asks him, uncovering her eyes so she can give him the stink-eye. "Is that what you're saying to me?"

"Yes, that's what I'm saying," he tells her, leaning over to press a kiss to her shoulder, than one at the base of her neck, her throat, her jaw, before finally resting on her lips. "Good morning, you look beautiful."

"You're only saying that because I'm your girlfriend," Stephanie teases him, "don't act like I don't know what's going on."

"Oh, what's going on then?" he wonders, raising an eyebrow as he hovers over her face. He loves seeing her here. Being with Stephanie has been better than he ever could have imagined. She is perfect. He knows she's not really, not totally, but to him, she is absolute perfection. The past few weeks have been incredible, and he has never felt this way before.

He knows he loves her, he knows that's what this is because it is above and beyond anything he's felt for anybody in his entire life. He feels like he's rolled everything he's loved up until this point, and molded that into Stephanie. He hopes, no, he knows she feels the same way because sometimes, he catches her looking at him, and he's never seen her look like that at anyone, not even when she was with Paul.

"You are crazy about me," she says rather astutely.

"Damn, correct," he lays down next to her, nestling his face into her neck, taking in her scent, faint as it is, but she is still intoxicating.

"So, I forgot to tell you yesterday," she starts, running her hand up and down his arm, her palm soft against his skin, so soft he's nearly purring. "I talked to my lawyer, and with the pre-nup, everything is going to be pretty cut and dry, so the divorce proceedings are really in full swing now. Paul said he's not going to contest anything, and since we have no kids, there's really nothing to fight over."

"That's great," he says, and it is. He figured this would be amicable, and for her sake, he's glad it is.

"Yes, so…since everything is getting squared away and since things will go into processing, which pretty much means once we get the property thing settled, all we'll need is for it to get finalized, so I think it's finally time to come out as a couple." His head shoots up to look at her face and she's beaming at him.

"Are you serious?" he asks, but he knows she is because she wouldn't joke about this. He's been waiting patiently to come out with their relationship, and he thinks he's been doing a great job, but it was getting to the point where he was dying to tell people, and the news was getting harder and harder to keep to himself.

"Of course I'm serious, you think I would tell you something like this and be joking?" she asks, rolling her eyes then pulling him down to press his lips to hers. "We've been dating for weeks now, it's time to tell people we're a couple, and maybe now your friends won't be such jerks when you tell them you aren't coming out after the shows."

He laughs and thinks about his dear but dumb friends who have been getting on his case for not partying with them anymore. Stephanie has taken precedent in his life, and his partying ways seem to be a thing of the past. He wants to spend his time with her, but he couldn't tell his friends this without the questions, and it there were questions, there were going to be answers, ones he couldn't yet tell.

"That will be a nice change."

"I thought so," she smiles, "I figure at the next show, we can just come out with it."

"Good, I'm glad, do you think it would be appropriate to announce it over the Titantron during Raw?"

"Oh, I was thinking we just wait for a Pay-Per-View, you know, make people pay to see us together," she jokes. "I figure that would be the most interesting and profitable way."

"Always about the money with you," he shakes his head before he lays down on top of her again. "You feel so good."

"That's a strange compliment, but I'll take it!" Stephanie kids, wrapping her arms around Chris and sighing peacefully. "So what is it you want to do today? I was thinking we could go bike riding."

"You don't have a bike here," he reminds her.

"Oh yeah," she snaps her finger. "Can we buy me one and then we'll go bike riding. I'd love to explore the city a little bit. You can show me all the cool places that Tampa has to offer, plus, I can tell from the way the sun is shining that it's going to be a beautiful day."

"You can tell from how the sun is shining?" he asks incredulously.

"Yup, you mean to tell me you can't?" she chides him, clicking her tongue. "I have so much to teach you, Mr. Irvine."

"Okay, then you can teach me while I teach you the perks of Tampa." Chris rolls over to lay flat on his back as he turns his head to look to his dresser. He notices that she has a ton of her makeup and perfumes sitting there. One glance to his closet and he sees some of her clothes hanging there. He's a little taken aback and he glances back at Stephanie, but she has her eyes closed again.

Chris dumps his bag onto his bed in the future, glancing at it, seeing Stephanie in it though he does not remember her touch, doesn't remember how she truly felt in his bed, and her scent has long since left it. He knows she's been there though, he can remember, in snippets, her presence in it. He wants to curl himself up inside of it, burying himself into it until her scent comes back to him.

Suddenly though, her scent _does_ hit him and he whirls around, half expecting to see her there, smiling at him, but there's nothing except his own reflection. His eyes scan the area, and he immediately spots the array of perfumes sitting on top of his dresser. They were not there when he left. They materialized out of nowhere, half empty some of them, but still secreting their pungent scents of flowers and sandalwood, honeysuckle and wine. He picks one up, his fingers nearly ghosting over the surface, and he takes a deep breath, inhaling Stephanie as she wafts through the air.

It knocks him nearly down and he sits heavily on the bed. If someone walked in, they would think he never got rid of this stuff after she died, but its appearance throws him for a loop. She was part of his life. It's hard to deny that now. She was it for him, he knows it now, his past self knows it now, every incarnation of himself knows he was meant to be with Stephanie. It's a humbling revelation. Now he is on the same page with his former self, he knows it. He knows the him of the past it just as in love with Stephanie as the him right now, in fact, maybe even more so because the him of the past knows her skin, knows how she feels under his fingertips while he only has the wisps of a memory.

He clings to the small bottle of perfume, as if letting it go will mean it'll disappear like she did. He does not want her to disappear. He wants her here with him, but there's still time, there's still so much time between now and when she is going to die. He cannot imagine the grief he will feel if she still dies. Will it ripple through him? Will he know if it happens? Will the grief of his former self slam into him like a speeding car into a brick wall? It will have to hurt more. He knows her now, it will hurt so profoundly now. He has to stop it from happening. A half empty perfume bottle cannot be the last remnants of a woman so vibrant.

He finally puts the bottle down before he starts unpacking, his movements mechanical and without thought. He lays his clothes down on his bed, separating the clean ones from the dirty ones. He takes the dirty ones to the hamper then grabs the clean ones, intending to put them back in his closet. He opens the door and stops short, the clothes in his hands dropping like hot stones, landing with a muffled thud on the carpet. All he sees are her clothes, taking up half his closet, hanging there like they belong there.

He steps forward, running his hands over the clothes, wondering how they got here, not how they materialized, not how the world has changed, but he desperately wants to know how it came about. How did she get them here? Did he help her move them, did they sneak in one by one until half his closet was suddenly her territory? He wants the memories so badly, and he sinks to his knees in some kind of odd prayer, praying that suddenly the memory will come to him, that all the memories will come to him.

They don't.


	17. Chapter 17

A/N: Thanks for the reviews/read/faves/whatever, hope you enjoy the story! :)

* * *

"Chris, I'm going downstairs to get a cup of coffee, you want one!"

"You just had one with breakfast," Chris calls out from the bathroom where he's towel drying his hair.

"I know, but it was crap, whoever made it should be ashamed of themselves. They should go to coffee school and learn how to make a decent cup," Stephanie yells back.

"I'm good, I'm not caffeine dependent like some people," he jokes as he hears her laugh softly in the other room.

"Hey buddy, I'm your girlfriend now, which means you chose me and wanted to be with me, that means you take the good with the bad, got it?" Stephanie tells him, and now he's laughing too. He likes that about their relationship. They can laugh with one another so easily. Maybe that whole friends before relationship thing was right all along. He's never done it that way before, but it all feels so natural.

The girls he dated before Stephanie, he usually met them at random, struck up a rapport, and then it was dating, dating, dating, then break up, oops, sadness, and the like. With Stephanie, there was something established ahead of time. There was a foundation there, and where he thought it was a lame cliché when he first heard someone tell him he should be friends with someone before dating them, he could see the merit in it now.

"Fine, if that's the way it has to be, do you want me to pack your things?" he asks her. He can practically hear her growl all the way from here, and suddenly she's popping up in the doorway. "Damn it, Stephanie, way to sneak up on a guy!"

"What, are you going deaf?" she wonders, snapping her finger near his ear, "I'm not exactly Miss Graceful over here. I've been told I sound like a clomping rhino when I walk."

"Who do I have to beat up over a comment like that?" he asks her, pretending to look really mad. "Nobody calls my girlfriend a clomping rhino!"

"My brother, so get at him!" Stephanie wraps her arms around his bare waist and teases her hand across the top of the towel banded around his waist. "You make quite the delicious picture here, Mr. Irvine. If I wasn't going through caffeine withdrawal, I may have to steal away your virtue."

"You could steal it any day," he kisses her forehead. "Go, go get your coffee so you can be a real, functioning human being."

"You sure you don't want anything?"

"I'm sure," he kisses her lips this time. "Be back soon though, I don't think I can go more than five minutes without you at this point."

"Pathetic, you, sir, are pathetic," she leans up to press a kiss to his cheek before she disappears again. He hears the door close behind her and he goes back to drying his hair. He throws the towel on the counter before wandering into the bedroom. There's a knock at the door, and he wonders if Stephanie forgot something, maybe her key since she's knocking.

He walks over, throwing it open and he's surprised to find Paul staring back at him. "Oh, uh, hey, I thought you were Stephanie."

"Wait, isn't this Stephanie's room, that's what—" It dawns on Paul what must be going on here, and he turns a fetching shade of red. He licks his lips a little bit in and looks away, as if trying to compose himself. "She's not here, is she?"

"No, she's not."

"I wanted to talk to her, just…about the divorce and everything, but actually," he sighs here, then takes a deep breath, composing himself. "I wanted to talk to you as well, do you have a minute?"

"Sure, let me just not have this conversation naked," Chris gestures towards his towel. Paul nods and comes inside, taking a seat on the couch while Chris goes back to the bedroom. He dresses himself quickly before heading back out into the living area. He ends up leaning against the doorway, wanting to keep some distance between him and Paul.

He doesn't think Paul is going to beat him up or anything. Stephanie has insisted that the divorce is mutual, not to mention, if Paul wanted to beat him up, there had been plenty of opportunities before this one, and Paul has not take the initiative to start anything with him. Still, Chris wants to keep a little distance just in case. There can never been too many precautions in a situation like this.

"So, um, yeah," Chris starts lamely, not really knowing what he's going to say.

"It's not anything bad," Paul assures him, and it does little to ease Chris's mind. This is going to be awkward for a while. He doesn't know how long it will be awkward, but it's going to be. Essentially, these two men are tied together by Stephanie. He doesn't think Paul never loved Stephanie. In fact, he really thinks the opposite. If you know Stephanie, you can't help but love her. Her personality and magnetism is too strong. He just doesn't think Paul loved her in the way a husband should love a wife.

"Okay," Chris says, but makes no attempt to move from his position. "So what is it then?"

"I think we both know Stephanie is pretty special," he wrings his hands a little as he looks up at Chris. "Neither one of us is stupid, neither one of us is blind. Stephanie is a special human being. It's what drew me to her in the first place. I think everyone that meets her falls a little bit in love with her. I think I fell a lot in love with her. I know you did. I don't blame you for this or anything, I think it was inevitable. I love Stephanie, but it's just as a friend. I thought…well, you know how she is. It's so easy to get caught up in her world, but it was never my world. I was just along for the ride, and when I got tired, I just kept leaving her because we had nothing in common. But she has a lot in common with you. I saw it when you were friends. I guess I knew on some level I was losing her."

"She didn't cheat on you," Chris feels compelled to say that.

"I know, she's not that type of girl," Paul shakes his head, "but just treat her right, okay? I'm not trying to be overprotective dad on you or anything like that, it's just…Stephanie deserves the entire world. She deserves to have everything good in every way, the whole works. I want that for her, I know she wants it for me too, but I don't have anyone she can talk to right now, but she does, so I'm telling you, don't ever take her for granted."

Chris's eyes snap open as he stares up at the ceiling. He remembers an important conversation with Paul, one that took place a long time ago. Paul is telling him to take care of Stephanie, and there's something that twists inside of him. He failed Stephanie. He told Paul he would always take care of her, that he would be good for her, that he would make her life perfect, but he failed. He failed her, but he's trying to change it. He turns over and looks at the empty space next to him.

It has become increasingly lonely as the days go by. He keeps hoping one day he will wake up and there she will be, lying next to him, that smile on his face that he now knows is reserved for him. He falls asleep to that face, smiling at him through a dream. When he opens his eyes, her ghost, or the memory lingers just enough that he can picture what she looked like here in his bed, their bed. He was supposed to give her the world, but she didn't have the world. He only has a thin shred of hope that his past self will succeed in doing what he couldn't.

"I never would," past Chris answers, shaking his head. "Stephanie is incredible."

"Okay, I'm just glad we understand each other," Paul nods. "I want her to be happy. That's all I really want for her, I know it's cliché to say that, but it's what I feel. I just want to make sure she's moving onto a better guy for her."

"I like to think she is," Chris responds without malice or smugness. "But I gotta ask, how did you know about the two of us? Did Stephanie tell you about us?"

"Yeah, of course she did, I'm surprised she didn't tell you."

"She might have," Chris shrugs, "she says a lot of things, usually I'm just staring at her, stupefied over why she would want to be with someone like me."

Paul laughs and nods like he's been there before, "She does have that affect. Anyways, I better go, but can you let her know that I wanted to talk to her. Things are pretty much at the end, and I just want to make sure that she's okay with how things are going."

"I'll definitely let her know," Chris takes a few steps forward and extends his hand towards Paul. Paul stands from the couch to take Chris's hand, giving it a firm shake. It's not like they're passing along Stephanie like she's some sort of object, but Chris almost feels like Paul is entrusting Stephanie with him.

"And Stephanie and I are going to stay friends, I think we'd be great friends, but I don't want you to feel jealous over it or anything."

"No, dude, I don't really care, Stephanie's her own woman, she can decide who to be friends with. Just cut it out with the sex and we'll be good," he jokes, easing the tension. Paul laughs and jerks his thumb towards the door, signaling he's going to leave. Chris nods and follows him, watching as he leaves. He heaves a sigh of…something, he's not sure what exactly, but he feels better somehow.

Stephanie returns about ten minutes later, a coffee in hand, and a croissant hanging out of her mouth. Chris looks at her like she's crazy and takes the pastry out of her mouth. "Thanks," Stephanie says, I was just holding it there while I opened the door."

"We ate breakfast already," he reminds her.

"I know, but it just looked too tempting," Stephanie's eyes light up as she leans in for a kiss. "Did you miss me while I was gone? And word to the wise, you should always say that of course you missed me because I'm your girlfriend."

"Of course I missed you," he relents as she takes back her pastry, taking a big bite out of it. "Paul was here while you were gone, only for a few minutes. He was looking for you. He just wanted to make sure everything was okay on your end regarding the divorce."

"Cool, cool," she stands there thinking for a moment before she sits down at the table in the corner. "Was everything okay between the two of you? There were no fisticuffs I hope."

"No, we were actually civil towards one another. I don't hate the guy or anything. I kind of like him since he was willing to give you a divorce without any of the messiness that can usually accompany them."

"Ahh yes, such a sacrifice."

"Well, it is to me," he tells her, staring straight at her. She blushes under his scrutiny and takes a sip of her coffee. "Sorry, am I making you uncomfortable?"

"No, just…it's nothing," she tells him, ducking her head a little, but he catches a smile on her face. "You're just…you're just a really great guy, and I love being with you and everything. You make things…it's different with you."

"It's different with you too," Chris tells her, walking over and kissing the top of her head. He gets what she's trying to say without saying the words. He knows they're not really ready for them, not right now. He can feel it though, and he knows she can feel it, but the words can wait. They can wait until a later time.

Chris so desperately wants the memory of her words. He does not have them yet. He feels them, he feels his love for Stephanie with every fiber of his being. It has not diminished, and he does not think it ever will. There is too much feeling still stirring inside of him for it ever to diminish. He knows he's changing the past, but it's not fast enough, and the one memory he's so desperately searching for still has not come to him. He wants to hear her say the words. He wants to remember. He _needs_ to hear her say she loves him.

Just once…he can live for now with just once…


	18. Chapter 18

"Chris!"

He turns around, looking at Linda, who was trying to catch up to him. He pauses, waiting for her to reach him. He talks to Linda a lot nowadays, which was strange at first, but he finds he has a strange affection for her, which can only be attributed to his past relationship with Stephanie. It warms him to know that he had a good relationship with Stephanie's parents while she was still alive, and it's nice to know that extends past her death. He hopes his past self succeeds in his mission because he'd love to see Linda look happy again.

There's always this sadness that seems to hover over her, and it's never dissipated. Nobody is supposed to lose their children, and he wishes he lived in a world where this was the case. The thing he hasn't given too much thought to during this whole ordeal with his past self is that Stephanie affected other lives. She was not solely his, but belonged to so many people. He's not only changing his future, making it better, but he's doing the same for countless numbers of people who need Stephanie in their lives.

He hasn't really spoken or communicated with his past self in a while. He doesn't want to scare him off, doesn't want his other self, the one who is still happy, who still thinks he has forever with Stephanie, to get scared off and leave her. If he does, she may run back to Paul and this will all be futile. When he knows it's getting closer, when he knows that it's almost the dreaded time, he'll contact him again, he'll make sure, to the best of his ability, that Stephanie will live. He has to believe that there is something to be done. He refuses to believe she will be lost to him forever. That thought depresses him too thoroughly.

"Linda, hello," he says warmly as Linda leans up to give him a hug. He returns it affectionately, matching her warmth. They know each other, he knows because he can feel it. He knows that they are familiar with each other through their love for Stephanie. "I haven't seen you in a while."

"I know, which is why I was seeking you out," she tells him, "Vince and I would love to have you over for dinner while you're here. We're having Shane and Rissa over with the boys, and since you're here in the area, we'd love for you to join us."

He knows that they will be missing one member, that her lack of presence will be nearly as palpable as it would be if her heart still beat. Still, he is somehow part of this, part of the McMahons, and as long as Stephanie is gone, he will always be this kind of tacked on member who shares their profound grief. They understand him, their hurt is perhaps worse than his own. He would not want to lose a child, a sibling, a sister-in-law, they understand him, and he understands then.

"Of course, Linda, I wouldn't want to be anywhere else."

* * *

"Don't be nervous!" Stephanie chastises him gently.

"I'm not nervous," Chris looks at her.

"What, oh, that must be me then," Stephanie jokes as she kisses his cheek.

"You're not nervous either."

"Oh, then why am I shaking? Oh yes, it's because it's cold out here and my boyfriend didn't offer me his jacket, that's why. I remember now," Stephanie jokes with him, making an exaggerated shiver.

"We're almost inside, God," he teases her, but he steps behind her and rubs his hands over her bare arms. "You're the one who insisted you would be okay, I told you that it gets cold at night now, but it was like you didn't believe me."

"You should have brought me a jacket," Stephanie pouts, looking up at him pathetically.

"Hold on, I think I have an extra jacket in my trunk," he moves to his car, opening the trunk and pulling out a jacket he had in there. He brings it over to her, slipping it onto her shoulders as she puts her arms through it. She smiles gratefully at him and he kisses her cheek. "You're welcome."

"I didn't even say thank you."

"It was on the tip of your tongue, I could tell," he tells her as he tries to take her hand. His jacket is too long so he ends up grabbing a bunch of sleeve, but she pushes her hand out to take his. "Your parents really don't mind, right?"

"Of course they don't, that's why they wanted to have dinner, to show you how much they don't mind," she says as they resume walking towards the restaurant where they were to meet her parents. Stephanie had suggested the neutral site as a way to make it more comfortable for Chris. Being alone in a house with her parents and her parents alone seemed almost daunting. "I don't think they thought I would last with Paul anyways."

"I think you two were the only ones convinced it would work."

"It worked," she defends their relationship, "it just worked on a weird level that says we're better friends. He'll find someone, he's too nice and sweet not to find someone. I know you didn't see that side of him so much, but it's there, and if he lets you see it, you're in for it. He'll be the nicest guy in the world."

"I think he's just that way for you," Chris concedes, "but how could he not when it's you."

"Okay, smooth talker, let's get inside. My parents like you, they just want to get to know you a little better, get to know us."

"I'm ready for it."

* * *

"Shane, man, it's nice to see you again," Chris shakes the man's hand, pulling him in for a manly hug. "You look good."

"You do too," Shane says, but then his voice lowers, "How are you doing?"

"I'm doing okay," Chris says, and he doesn't want to say he's doing great because he isn't. The words he so desperately wants to hear from Stephanie are still not a memory in his brain, and he knows, he _knows_ that when she says them, it will be one of his most cherished memories so it clearly hasn't happened yet. He's still getting new memories of them together so they're still an item, but clearly love has not passed their lips yet, and he's getting impatient.

He knows his past self must feel it, he has to because the feeling inside of him at the thought of Stephanie is so strong, but he knows it's built upon something. Before things started changing, when his love was singular, insular, and unrequited, it felt hollow, baseless, something that he found too late, and knew too little about. But now, it was real, and there were memories attached, and there was heartache and destruction.

"Good, good, I'm glad," Shane says, his voice still sympathetic, and Chris feels like he hates it, like this is an old hate he receives from everyone who asks him how he's doing. He does not like the sympathy, but it constantly surrounds him.

"Chris!" Marissa envelopes him in a hug. "How are you?"

"I'm okay, Rissa, just telling your husband the same thing."

"So…have you, uh, I mean, are you—"

"No," he instantly understands. She's asking if he's moved on, if there's someone new in his life, but there's not. There won't be because he has to believe Stephanie will be back someday. He has to believe his past self will resolve this, and instead of looking at a bevy of faces that each hold their own torch of sadness, he will see smiling faces of happiness because they will have Stephanie here with them.

"Oh," Marissa doesn't know quite how to respond to that, but she doesn't have to as Kenny comes running into the room.

"Uncle Chris!" he yells, rushing towards Chris. He lifts him up and throws him into the air. He's in so deep with this family, they may as well be his own, and in a way, they are, and they always will be. Stephanie will always be here, between them, and he is with them now since she is always with him.

* * *

"Chris, nice to see you again," Vince shakes Chris's hand as he stands up to greet his daughter and her boyfriend. "Although this is under different circumstances."

Chris laughs, "Yeah, slightly different. And even though I saw you just the other day, it's nice to see you again too."

"Hello, Chris," Linda tells him, getting up and actually coming around the table to give him a hug. "I need to hug the man that's making my daughter so happy."

"Mom," Stephanie whines, rolling her eyes and looking at her dad imploringly. He just shakes his head because his wife will always just do what she wants to do. "Please stop embarrassing me."

"I'm not sorry," Linda says, giving Stephanie a look. "Sit down, sit down, and we can talk." Chris and Stephanie take the seats across from them, Chris pulling Stephanie's chair out for her before sitting down. "So how did you two end up seeing each other?"

"You really don't beat around the bush, do you, Mom?" Stephanie just grabs Chris's hand tighter in her own, giving him strength he doesn't necessarily need, but he thinks it's sweet all the same, and he squeezes it back.

He can't really tell the true story, the story of those weird messages, texts, and emails. Stephanie doesn't even know about those nor does she need to anymore. She's not with Paul any longer so whoever that person was harassing him has no reason to do so any longer. The messages have actually stopped for a few weeks now so he figures whoever it is will be with Paul soon enough. He can't say he's mad at them at this point. If they hadn't done what they'd done, he wouldn't be with Stephanie right now, and she's perfect for him.

"We just kind of started hanging out together," Chris tells the innocuous version of the story, the story Stephanie believes, "and it kind of escalated from there. I mean, I don't think it was one moment where we decided, I just think I fell for your daughter without even really realizing it."

Stephanie grins at him then at her parents, "He won me over."

"I can't say I'm upset with the match," Vince says, "I haven't even been around you two for very long, but I can already tell you're a better pair than you and Paul."

"Dad, let's not talk about Paul, okay, we're still friends, and he's making things very easy for us. He's not a bad guy, he just wasn't the _right_ guy," Stephanie defends her ex-husband and Chris gives her one of those hand squeezes. She doesn't like to hear people talking badly about Paul, and he understands. The two of them, they're right together, right as friends, and that's important to her. Stephanie loves fiercely, he's realizing, and he knows, even though she hasn't yet said the words, that he's on that list, and it's the best feeling.

"I'm sorry, I'm sorry," Vince apologizes, "I just like this here, I like the two of you."

"We're not a storyline, Dad," Stephanie reminds him, giving him a look that Chris recognizes as her warning look. Her dad actually backs off and Chris realizes just how much power wields against her father. It's a sight to behold, and he loves just a little more for that. She really is the most powerful woman he's ever known, and he loves being under her power.

"I wasn't even suggesting we put you two together, I'm merely expressing that I like the idea of you two, knowing the both of you, I think you're very much alike, I should have encouraged this relationship earlier."

Stephanie scrunches up her nose as she laughs, "I'm not sure we'd be together if it was _you_ who put us together."

"She's always been a little rebellious," Linda stage whispers to Chris. He likes this, he likes her family in this setting, it's unexpected, but welcoming. Her family is more like her than he thought. He's used to the business McMahons, and he was fine with them, but the family McMahons are even better.

* * *

"We're so glad you could come tonight, Chris," Linda tells him, sitting with him on the couch. "It kind of feels like Stephanie is still with us whenever you're here."

"I get the same feeling," he tells her wistfully, "I still miss her so much."

"We all do," Linda pats him on the hand. "We all wish she could be here."

He's the only one that knows that hopefully soon, she will be.


	19. Chapter 19

A/N: Thanks for reading and everything, enjoy, leave a review! :)

* * *

"Hey, boyfriend."

"Hey, girlfriend," he says in a sassy voice that makes her giggle as she sits down on the couch next to him. Like a cat, she crawls into his lap and situates herself so she's comfortable, not taking him into account. He doesn't care though because he likes having her close. He likes reminding himself that she's really his girlfriend and he's really happy. "Where have you been?"

He hasn't seen her in hours, and that's okay now. She does her own thing while in his house, and he does his, and she feels so at home here now that he doesn't feel like he has to entertain her or try to constantly find something for her to do. She brings her work with her, a cute briefcase that she puts on his dining room table and sets up shop on. It's not unusual now to walk in there and see a million different papers strewn about the table, neat and messy piles alike, with her right in the middle of it. He calls it chaos, she calls it her own special organizational system and he doesn't disturb her when she's in there.

"Upstairs," she tells him, glancing up at the ceiling like something will fall right through. He hopes briefly she didn't flood his bathroom and the bathtub is about to come crashing down on them.

"What were you doing upstairs?" he wonders because it feels like she's being a little bit evasive, and he wants to know what about.

"We've been dating for about five months now, right, give or take?" she asks, wonders, maybe she's telling him because he's confused about the question, the implications behind it.

Yes, they have been dating a while now, and it's been going wonderfully. He hopes this isn't the set-up to a break up, but it doesn't feel like that. They have fun together, they laugh a lot, they have sex a lot too, and they relate to each other in a way he has never related to anyone in his life. So if this is her break-up, he is prepared to get down on his knees and beg her not to leave him. He is that desperate for her.

"Yeah, it's been about that, why?" he asks, his eyes a clear blue, open wide, and vulnerable. She doesn't seem to notice because she's not looking at him. Her eyes narrow slightly and she takes a deep breath, which only exacerbates his worry. He reaches up and runs his fingers through her hair, twirling them as if it will be the last time.

"I think I've moved in," Stephanie finally says to him. "I was sitting in your closet for the past hour, just staring, and most of my clothes are here, I'd say about 90% of my closet is here. In five months, most of my clothes are here. I think I moved in without even knowing it. Then after I got out of the closet, I walked into the bedroom where my stuff was lying around the floor, where my makeup was on the dresser, and where my books and things are on the nightstand."

"And all of this put together leads you to…"

"Believe that I've moved in here," Stephanie laughs, "and I'm not entirely sure when it happened, but it appears that I have moved into your home."

"That's okay, I don't mind," he tells her, and he's actually relieved because it's not a break-up, it's the exact opposite…unless this is too fast for her. "Do you mind?"

"That's the thing, I don't," she responds. "I should miss my home more, shouldn't I? I've lived in Connecticut pretty much my entire life and I really should miss it. And I should want my nice corner office in Titan, but I like working from here, I like taking over the dining room, and I don't mind communicating via conference call or video meeting, and isn't that weird?"

"Only if you want it to be weird," he tells her.

"I was hoping…and this is where you come in—"

"Because I had no part in the moving in thing," Chris jokes and she sticks her tongue out at him. He can't help himself and he kisses her, taking advantage of her slightly open mouth to deepen in the kiss, making her tongue dance with his. She licks her lips as she pulls away and leans her forehead against his.

"Well, that makes this a little easier," she tells him, "I was hoping I could…make this my permanent residence."

"What?" he blinks because he's not sure he heard her right. He knows what he wants to hear, and that is that she wants to move in with him permanently, actually live here with him on a daily basis, call this place home.

"I want to move in, like, I want to sell my house in Connecticut, and I want to fill out all those annoying 'change of address' things to here. I want to live here with you, but I figured I should ask you first or at least get your input on it because we're in a relationship and that's what adults do, at least I hope it is."

"Absolutely!" he nearly screams in her face because he's really happy at the moment, and this is not how he expected his day to go. It's better than he ever expected his day to go.

She sighs in relief, "Oh good, I was afraid you'd tell me we aren't at that point in our relationship because I haven't told you I loved you yet."

"Well, I mean, you just got out of a marriage and that's a huge deal, and I didn't want to pressure you—"

"I love you though, you know that, I mean, I hope you know that, I didn't say it, I don't know why because it's been on the tip of my tongue for so long now, and I don't know, maybe I was waiting for you to say it first, you feel it too, right, I'm not the only one in love here, right, because that would make this awkward, and I will run home, which I kind of want to be this home, so…that's doubly awkward."

He laughs and kisses her again, "You know I love you."

"I'm not one of those people who is going to say it all the time, but I will feel it all the time, is that alright with you?" Stephanie asks like it's some kind of problem if he doesn't hear the words all the time.

"I'm fine with it, you love me, that's fine with me," Chris tells her, "just knowing you do, it's great. And I want you to live her, definitely, for sure. I'll even put you on the deed if you want then it'll be really yours."

"Well, maybe, we'll see, but now I have things to do, I have so much to do, that's what I was thinking about, all the things I have to do now. It's a little overwhelming, but the good kind of overwhelming. I'll have to tell my parents though, they might be a little put out, but they'll deal with it, they let me make my own decisions, and quite frankly, I think I've been doing my job just as well out here as I would there. Since I'm the head of creative, it's not really imperative for me to be there."

He finds it sweet how into the idea of moving in she is, how much she wants this. He didn't even contemplate it before, so gradual was the transition, but now that he's aware, now that he knows it's what she wants, he very much likes the idea, and she's so enthusiastic, even if he didn't want her moving in, the tone of her voice is enough to convince him of it.

"Okay, well, I'm going to go look at your other rooms, I have a lot of stuff, I'm not saying I'm going to get rid of your stuff, I'm just going to see if my stuff will have any place here. We can compromise!"

"We'll figure it out," Chris said, "and you know, if you're moving in, pick a room, have an office, alright?"

"But the dining room table!" she protests jokingly.

"I think it'll do fine without you, go ahead, pick one…not mine!"

"Come on, Chris, we can have desks back to back, it'll be like we're a detective agency or something," she laughs, giving him a really cheesy look, and it reminds him why he fell for her in the first place.

"No, it's already crowded in mine, get your own."

In the future, Chris passes a room. A few days ago, it was a guest room. A few days ago, he would have opened the door, and greeting him would be a bed with a plain set of blue sheets, a couple nightstands, and a nondescript dresser. He never has many guests so it was always sparse, just a place to sleep really, but the other night, while he was on the road, he remembers that moment. He woke up startled because the words came, the words he wanted so badly to hear.

And they did not come in the expected way, not at all. He's been waiting and waiting for them to come, impatiently most of the time. He wants to text himself, ask himself what the hold up is, but he's trying to stay out of the relationship until the time comes, until he can no longer stay silent once more. So he went to bed every night, hoping in the morning a memory would come, and on some mornings, hoping more vehemently that she will be there with him. And every morning he's been disappointed until the morning before last.

He woke up and it was there, her love surrounding him, warming him like a blanket on a cool, winter's night. He felt love in a way that he hadn't the night before, and it comforts him. She is still gone, still not with him, but her love lingers here, and he feels it in everything he does. He walked into his home, and the love bombarded him like an avalanche, creeping in from every corner, and now that she is here, now that he knows this was absolutely her one and only home, her true north, her phantom plays around every corner. Her laughter is trapped in these walls, echoing just slightly, just enough that he feels her near, can feel that she will and has to come back to him. He cannot accept any other fate but that.

Then the revelation that she would have an office, and he knows immediately which room it is because it's ingrained in his memory, and he sees it, knows it by heart in his brain, but his eyes, they have yet to feast on it. So he walks down the hallway and he stops, just in front of it, the door closed, as if what's behind it is a gift he must now unwrap. He knows she won't be sitting at her desk, but he sees her there in his mind, how she perches her legs over her chair while on a phone call, how she sometimes fell asleep, her head gently resting on her forearms. She's there in his mind, but he has to see the space.

He opens the door and it's empty, of course, but not at the same time. She's so fully in there that he staggers inside. The room is still bright and airy, the blinds open as if waiting for her to come in and finish up some paperwork, and there is still paperwork strewn about, just like it was on their dining room table. There are stacks here and there, a filing cabinet, a bookshelf filled with books all arranged haphazardly. Her laptop sits closed on top of the desk, a healthy film of dust sitting on top of it. And pictures. There are four pictures sitting on top of her desk. He knows them, but still wants to see them, touch the same pictures that she looked at with a smile when work got too stressful.

The first is of her and her parents. She's younger, just out of college and she's in between them, standing and grinning, her cheeks rosy and her parents beaming. He has so many memories of her, he forgets where this was taken, forgets because there are so many memories Stephanie shared with him that some have slipped from his mind like the forgotten pieces of paper she was always leaving behind somewhere. She's happy in the picture though, they all are, and he traces her face as he puts the picture down.

The second is of her brother's family, a family portrait, Shane and Marissa sitting down with Declan and Kenny in their laps. They all smile properly for the camera, and Stephanie's one regret with moving to Florida was that she couldn't be around her "favorite boys." She would constantly reiterate that he was not number one in her life, but Declan and Kenny were. He always conceded that they were probably better off receiving more of her attention. She claimed she wanted to be the cool aunt when they grew up. He wants her back for them as well, so she can be the cool aunt, take them out and have fun with them, spoil them, and treat them.

The last two are of them. Again, the memories are hazy and foggy because his mind is jam-packed full of memories. One is her wrapped around him from behind, her cheek laying on his shoulder as she tries to gaze at his face. He's watching something, barely even paying attention to her, and somehow, that makes her look more genuine. She's not trying to get his attention, she's simply looking at him. He's shirtless, so it was from work, and he looks slightly rumpled, so it must have been after a match.

The last one though, the last one is special, but not for any particular reason. It was the day after she officially moved in. Her family all came down to help her unpack, and the house was filled with laughter, banter, and stories about how Stephanie told her parents at seven that she was going to live with them forever. They went to dinner after that, a restaurant along the waterfront, and there was a pathway next to the water they were walking on. Marissa had turned back to say something to them, but he remembers they were so engrossed in conversation they ignored her.

So she took a picture.

And there they are, hand in hand, fingers linked, turned to each other in conversation. She's wearing a long sundress that blew in the breeze so much sometimes he had to hold it down for fear she'd flash everyone. Her hair is in her face just slightly, but she's laughing, and he is staring down at her like she lights up the world. And he thought that, and he thinks that, and he wants that back so much.

One day, she'll be back in this office, one day he'll open the door and there she'll be.


	20. Chapter 20

A/N: Thanks for all the reviews/reads and all the rest, hope you enjoy the chapter! :)

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He walks into his house one day and barely recognizes it.

Her stuff, her life pervades his house in a way he didn't expect. He remembers she said they would compromise, but in that one moment when he walks into his house and sees everything almost completely different, he realizes that their compromise was really just him telling her she could do anything she wanted. He almost thinks he walked into the wrong house, and he has forgotten that he and Stephanie moved at some point, but that can't be it. He walks around, and he sees pictures of himself, and he sees pictures of her, and slowly but surely, he realizes he just loved her enough to let her do anything she wanted with his home…their home.

"Chris!" Stephanie bounds down the stairs, a measuring tape in hand as her ponytail flies behind her. "Chris!"

"You don't have to yell, the house isn't that big," he laughs as he emerges from the den. "I know you're used to living in massive mansions."

"Very funny," she sticks her tongue out.

Chris spies the measuring tape now and he rolls his eyes, "What are you looking at now?"

"I was just seeing what one of the guest room walls was like. I was thinking of putting a different bed in there. The bed you have in there looks like it's going to fall apart, plus it's small, and if we're going to have people over—"

"We're going to have people over?" Chris asks, wondering when this happened. He's never been a guy who had people 'stay over,' so the guest bedroom was never exactly a priority to him.

"Yes, once I'm fully moved in, we're going to have a housewarming, and I figured with the extra bedrooms, we could have some family stay here, maybe my parents and your dad and step-mother or something like that," she tells him.

"Um, how about no?" he scoffs. "Do you really think I want Vince McMahon in my home, the place where I sleep, the place where I have sex with his daughter?"

Stephanie covers her face with her hands as she bursts into embarrassed laughter, "You can never tell him that!"

"So if we have kids, he's just going to assume, what? That we didn't have sex?" Chris wonders, laughing as he says it. He understands not wanting your parents to know about your sex life, but she's so cutely embarrassed by it. She comes over to him and hugs him around the waist, burying her face into his neck. "I think that's going to be difficult, Steph."

"Well, I'm never going to tell them we've done it," Stephanie tells him, her breath tickling his neck. "They'll just have to assume it because, nope. Either way, they'll want to stay here, even if it's just to be polite."

"Since when were we redoing everything?"

"How long have you had that bed in that guest room, Chris?"

"A while," he admits.

"How long is 'a while,' Chris?" she asks smugly because she must know the answer is going to be right into her court. Chris turns his eyes towards the ceiling because she can read him so well already, but then, he lays it out there for her. He doesn't keep himself from her, and sometimes he feels simply laid bare in front of her. He wants to be one of those couples who knows everything about each other. He wants to look at her a million years into the future and know ever secret, every memory, everything.

"It _may_ have been my bed growing up…that I took because my mom moved into a smaller place because she couldn't get around our house after her accident," Chris confesses sheepishly.

"Oh my God, that thing is going!" Stephanie crows, pulling away. "You don't mind though, I figure I should ask because I know you've been really sweet about this whole thing, and I know I'm invading your space."

"You're not," he grasps her shoulders and faces her. "Stephanie, this is your home now too, and if you want to change _all_ the furniture, go ahead. It's not like I had some interior designer in here to do the place, go to town."

"Really?" Stephanie says, her eyes lighting up.

"Yes, really, do it, go for it, make our house whatever you want, just nothing too frilly, remember that a guy lives here too, and I want to project a manly man image, you know, at least a little, don't want to appear too pussy-whipped."

"Ugh, men," she rolls her eyes, but she's off again. "Then that bed is going! And our bed will probably go too, we can do comfier and nicer!"

In the future, Chris lies on their huge bed, way too big for the two of them, and especially way too big now that it's just him. It is comfier than his old bed, a lot more so, and he wonders how much all this cost, not that money was ever really an issue for the two of them. He just wonders how all out she went because the house looks great, it just lacks her really. It lacks her spark, and now he's even more surrounded by her, and bit by bit his life is becoming their life.

They shared too much now, he thinks, they shared too much, and pretty soon, he can feel it, they will share everything. Pretty soon, his former self won't be able to contain it. He can picture it in his mind, can see how it will play out, and he wants it so much, but he looks down at his ring finger and knows that it might be too little too late. The time will come up fast. He knows Stephanie now, his own mind knows her, and it knows that he's going to ask her a very important question soon.

It may seem soon after they started dating, but he knows his own self, and he knows Stephanie. While he never got the chance to know everything about her, to know every memory, every moment of her life, he knows enough to know that they both recognize that this relationship is her last. The only problem is they don't know that the meaning of last is going to take a turn. He wants to stay out of the relationship, let it run its natural course, but sometimes he really wants to confess, to tell himself what's going to happen so he can maybe wrap Stephanie up in bubble wrap and keep her safe, but he doesn't think time works like that.

He can't resist one day though. There's just one day where he can't possibly resist, and he knows he shouldn't, knows that it's breaking every and all rules he set for himself, but he has to because it's killing him. Being in a house where she is imprinted on every piece of furniture, every plate, every spot, he can't take it, and he picks up his cell phone and he stares at it. He just needs a few seconds, and he wrestles with himself for long while, trying to decide if he should.

His fingers dial before he can even think about it, and his hand lifts the phone up to his ear, and he just doesn't know why he's doing this, but he has to. "Stephanie McMahon."

He doesn't know how it works, doesn't know why his phone can suddenly call into the past, he just doesn't know how it works, why it works, or how he got so lucky as to hear her voice, bubbly and sweet, but a little exasperated, probably because she's stressed from work. He may not know everything, but he knows a lot.

"Hello?" Stephanie asks again. "It's creepy if you don't say anything, stranger person who isn't saying anything and thus making me think you're extremely weird."

Chris clears his throat and changes his voice, putting on a bad British accent. He can't be himself because it would confuse her if she brought it up with his past self. "Um, hello, is this the insurance agency?"

"Um, insurance agency?" Stephanie giggles a little, and his heart stabs itself repeatedly because it hears her and she's alive somewhere in the universe, and he's talking to her right now. "I think you have the wrong number, I'm kind of running a wrestling company, not insurance."

"Oh, wrestling?" he asks like this is something new when he knows what she does in great detail.

"Yes, do you watch?" she makes light conversation, and only his girlfriend would strike up a conversation with a complete stranger who accidentally called her number.

"Yes, I've seen some, yes," he tells her, trying to sound nonchalant about it. "Wait, wait, wait, Stephanie McMahon, that sounds familiar, you're not _the_ Stephanie McMahon, are you?"

"That would be me, you've heard of me then? How weird that I get a wrong number from someone who's heard of me, unless you're some crazy stalker and you're outside my window right now, are you?" she jokes, and he wishes he were because it means he could see her and not just hear her, but he can't be greedy, not yet. Someday, if this doesn't work, if she still dies, then he'll be greedy then he'll want more, everything, but there's still hope.

"Yes, I've heard of you, but don't worry, I'm quite far away," he tells her, "nor do I even know where you live. I'm…" He quickly thinks for a second. "Is this the 812 area code?"

"Oh, see, that's where you got the problem, this is 813, so you really wanted, um….hold on…Indiana, you were trying to call Indiana, this is Florida, so yeah, you're just a little off, don't you think it's weird how it's all random numbers, and if you get one wrong, suddenly you're in a different place altogether?"

He laughs because that's such a Stephanie thing to say, and he missed that. He misses the way she would go off on completely odd tangents that were so completely her. "Yes, that is quite strange, America!"

"I figured you weren't American, but that was just a hunch," she jokes again, "What's your name, weary stranger?"

"Keith," he says quickly then cursing himself because Stephanie knows his middle name!

"Oh, nice name, that's my boyfriend's middle name."

"Very subtle way of telling me you're taken."

"Is that what I was doing?" she giggled. "I was just saying that I like the name, but he's pretty amazing anyways. So sorry, Keith, I don't think you really stand a chance here."

"That's okay, I'm kind of taken myself," he tells her, but doesn't say that it's her that has him taken, that will always have him taken. That would probably freak her out, and she doesn't need that. She just needs to survive.

"Good, we're on the same page," she says like they were planning on going out.

"Hey, babe, who are you talking to?" Chris hears his own voice, and he's a little jealous of his past self for being so close to her, close enough to where he can hear his own voice. It's different, his voice. It's happy, it's without the grief of losing this woman. He's not sure when his voice changed, became more solemn, but he's had people tell him it's different now, he's not as loose or funny now, and he can't care, doesn't care. It'll come back when she does. Everything will come back when she does.

"My boyfriend," Stephanie says coyly and horribly ironically.

"Okay, who is it so I can break his face," he hears himself say.

"Nope, it's just a wrong number, hold on," Stephanie comes back to the line, "Keith, sorry, but I have to run, hope you have a nice life, and that you get that insurance you need, bye."

"Take care of yourself, Stephanie, stay safe," he tells her. He doesn't just tell her, he needs her to stay safe. He needs her to be alive, she has to be alive because that cannot be the last conversation he has with her, and he realizes in that moment that as of right now, it is. That's the last conversation, not the one the morning of her death. He has a new last conversation now, and he should make it count.

"I'll try!" she says before he can even say anything more, and she hangs up the call.

Stay safe, Stephanie, please stay safe…


End file.
